In 2023, there were about 15.09 million children living with a single mother in the United States, and about 3.05 million children living with a single father. The number of children living with a single mother is down from its peak in 2012, and the number of children living with a single father is down from its peak in 2005.

Marriage and divorce in the United States

Despite popular opinion in the United States that “half of all marriages end in divorce,” the divorce rate in the U.S. has fallen significantly since 1992. The marriage rate, which has also been decreasing since the 1990s, was still higher than the divorce rate in 2021. Half of all marriages may not end in divorce, but it does seem that fewer people are choosing to get married in the first place.

New family structures

In addition to a falling marriage rate, fewer people in the U.S. have children under the age of 18 living in the house in comparison to 1970. Over the past decade, the share of families with children under 18, whether that be married couples or single parents, has stayed mostly steady, although the number of births in the U.S. has also fallen.

This statistic shows the 50 metropolitan areas with the highest percentage of female-headed family households in the United States in 2019. The McAllen-Edinburg-Mission metropolitan area, located on the Texas-Mexico border, was ranked first with 22.08 percent of households led by single mothers in 2019.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in St. Louis city, MO (S1101SPHOUSE029510) from 2009 to 2023 about St. Louis City, MO; single-parent; St. Louis; MO; households; 5-year; and USA.

In 2024, there were around 15.72 million families with a female householder and no spouse present in the United States, an increase from the previous year. You can get an overview on the total number of households in the U.S. here.

Full Description Children are all persons under the age of 18 years. 'Own children' in a family are sons and daughters, including stepchildren and adopted children, of the householder. 'Single-parent family' means only one parent is present in the home, and is never-married, widowed, divorced, or married, spouse absent. This data originates from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year estimates, table B11003. The ACS collects these data from a sample of households on a rolling monthly basis. ACS aggregates samples into one-, three-, or five-year periods.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Philadelphia County, PA (S1101SPHOUSE042101) from 2009 to 2023 about Philadelphia County/City, PA; single-parent; Philadelphia; PA; households; 5-year; and USA.

In 2023, there were about 6.65 million white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother living in the United States. This is a slight increase from 1990, when there were 6.4 million white families with a single mother living in the U.S.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Black Hawk County, IA (S1101SPHOUSE019013) from 2009 to 2023 about Black Hawk County, IA; Waterloo; single-parent; IA; households; 5-year; and USA.

Single-parent Families reports the percent of families with children that are headed by a single parent, per race/ethnicity of the householder. Dimensions Year;Measure.Type;Variable Full Description Children are all persons under the age of 18 years, living in families, and related as children by birth, marriage, or adoption to the householder. Children living with married step-parents are not included. Single-parent families may include unmarried couples. This data originates from the American Community Survey (ACS) 5-Year estimates, table B11003. The ACS collects these data from a sample of households on a rolling monthly basis. ACS aggregates samples into one-, three-, or five-year periods. At this time only state-level annual data are available on CTdata.org. Town-level data aggregated from the five-year datasets (considered to be more accurate for geographic areas that are the size of a county or smaller) can be produced using Census tables currently available on the Census website.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Cook County, IL (S1101SPHOUSE017031) from 2009 to 2023 about Cook County, IL; single-parent; Chicago; IL; households; 5-year; and USA.

This dataset includes birth rates for unmarried women by age group, race, and Hispanic origin in the United States since 1970. Methods for collecting information on marital status changed over the reporting period and have been documented in: • Ventura SJ, Bachrach CA. Nonmarital childbearing in the United States, 1940–99. National vital statistics reports; vol 48 no 16. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2000. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr48/nvs48_16.pdf. • National Center for Health Statistics. User guide to the 2013 natality public use file. Hyattsville, Maryland: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/VitalStatsOnline.htm. National data on births by Hispanics origin exclude data for Louisiana, New Hampshire, and Oklahoma in 1989; for New Hampshire and Oklahoma in 1990; for New Hampshire in 1991 and 1992. Information on reporting Hispanic origin is detailed in the Technical Appendix for the 1999 public-use natality data file (see (ftp://ftp.cdc.gov/pub/Health_Statistics/NCHS/Dataset_Documentation/DVS/natality/Nat1999doc.pdf.) All birth data by race before 1980 are based on race of the child. Starting in 1980, birth data by race are based on race of the mother. SOURCES CDC/NCHS, National Vital Statistics System, birth data (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/births.htm); public-use data files (see http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data_access/Vitalstatsonline.htm); and CDC WONDER (see http://wonder.cdc.gov/). REFERENCES Curtin SC, Ventura SJ, Martinez GM. Recent declines in nonmarital childbearing in the United States. NCHS data brief, no 162. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2014. Available from: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db162.pdf. Martin JA, Hamilton BE, Osterman MJK, et al. Births: Final data for 2015. National vital statistics reports; vol 66 no 1. Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics. 2017. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr66/nvsr66_01.pdf.

There are just under **** million single parent families in the United Kingdom as of 2024, compared with *** million in 1996.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Bexar County, TX (S1101SPHOUSE048029) from 2009 to 2023 about Bexar County, TX; San Antonio; single-parent; TX; households; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Los Angeles County, CA (S1101SPHOUSE006037) from 2009 to 2023 about single-parent; Los Angeles County, CA; Los Angeles; CA; households; 5-year; and USA.

In 2023, 16.7 percent of white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother were living below the poverty level in the United States. Poverty is the state of one who lacks a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing, and shelter.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Milwaukee County, WI (S1101SPHOUSE055079) from 2009 to 2023 about Milwaukee County, WI; Milwaukee; single-parent; WI; households; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Miami-Dade County, FL (S1101SPHOUSE012086) from 2009 to 2023 about Miami-Dade County, FL; single-parent; Miami; FL; households; 5-year; and USA.

Graph and download economic data for Single-Parent Households with Children as a Percentage of Households with Children (5-year estimate) in Harris County, TX (S1101SPHOUSE048201) from 2009 to 2023 about Harris County, TX; single-parent; Houston; TX; households; 5-year; and USA.

Explore available grants and financial assistance programs for single mothers in SD. This dataset estimates how much a single-parent family of 2 earning $0/month may receive in cash aid, food support, child care assistance, utility relief, and Medicaid coverage.

Note: Own children are never-married sons and daughters under the age of 18, including stepchildren and adopted children, of the householder or married couple.

This indicator provides the number of households with own children under the age of 18 along with the percentage of these that are single parent households. The percentages are of households with children under 18 years of age, not out of all housing units. Further, it specifies the percentages of households with children under 18 years of age that are single parent father or single parent mother households. Therefore, sum of single father household and single mother households will add to percent of single parent household with own children under 18.
Source: U.S. Census Bureau; 2013-2017 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates, Table S1101.