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 graph shows the Percentage of households led by a female householder with no spouse present with own children under 18 years living in the household in the U.S. in 2021, by state. In 2021, about 4.24 percent of Californian households were single mother households with at least one child.

Additional information on single mother households and poverty in the United States

For most single mothers a constant battle persists between finding the time and energy to raise their children and the demands of working to supply an income to house and feed their families. The pressures of a single income and the high costs of childcare mean that the risk of poverty for these families is a tragic reality. Comparison of the overall United States poverty rate since 1990 with that of the poverty rate for families with a female householder shows that poverty is much more prevalent in the latter. In 2021, while the overall rate was at 11.6 percent, the rate of poverty for single mother families was 23 percent. Moreover, the degree of fluctuation tends to be lower for single female household families, suggesting the rate of poverty for these groups is less affected by economic conditions.

The sharp rise in the number of children living with a single mother or single father in the United States from 1970 to 2022 suggests more must be done to ensure that families in such situations are able to avoid poverty. Moreover, attention should also be placed on overall racial income inequality given the higher rate of poverty for Hispanic single mother families than their white or Asian counterparts.

In 2023, there were around 15.18 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.

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 New Privately-Owned Housing Units Started: Single-Family Units (HOUST1F) from Jan 1959 to May 2025 about housing starts, privately owned, 1-unit structures, family, housing, and USA.

Single Family Purchase Loan Data 1999- 2020

  Single family purchase loan data that has had the PII removed; comprised of monthly snapshots Jan 2019-may 2020 About HUD Housing and Funding Allocation Data: Links to several different HUD datasets including CARES Act and Indian Housing Block Grant FY2020 allocations, and monthly single- and multi-family 2020 loan data with the PII removed. Other datasets contain sheltered/unsheltered/total homeless data by demographic, HUD Continuum of Care area, and State, shelter capacity by state yearly from 2007 to 2019, and American Community Survey 2014-2018 5-year county level estimates for median rent value.
  Geography Level: State, City, County, ZipItem Vintage: 1999-2020
  Update Frequency: N/AAgency: HUD (Multiple)Available File Type: Excel with PDF Supplement (All links go to same FHA dataset) 

  Return to Other Federal Agency Datasets Page

The Federal Housing Administration, generally known as FHA, provides mortgage insurance on loans made by FHA-approved lenders throughout the United States and its territories. FHA insures mortgages on single family and multifamily homes including manufactured homes and hospitals. It is the largest insurer of mortgages in the world, insuring over 34 million properties since its inception in 1934. The insurance is force represents the outstanding balance of an active loan.

In 2022, there were about 4.15 million Black families in the United States with a single mother. This is an increase from 1990 levels, when there were about 3.4 million Black families with a single mother.

Single parenthood

The typical family is comprised of two parents and at least one child. However, that is not the case in every single situation. A single parent is someone who has a child but no spouse or partner. Single parenthood occurs for different reasons, including divorce, death, abandonment, or single-person adoption. Historically, single parenthood was common due to mortality rates due to war, diseases, and maternal mortality. However, divorce was not as common back then, depending on the culture.

Single parent wellbeing

In countries where social welfare programs are not strong, single parents tend to suffer more financially, emotionally, and mentally. In the United States, most single parents are mothers. The struggles that single parents face are greater than those in two parent households. The number of families with a single mother in the United States has increased since 1990, but the poverty rate of black families with a single mother has significantly decreased since that same year. In comparison, the poverty rate of Asian families with a single mother, and the percentage of white, non-Hispanic families with a single mother who live below the poverty level in the United States have both been fluctuating since 2002.

Table containing authoritative single family housing values for Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Families of tax filers; Single-earner and dual-earner census families by number of children (final T1 Family File; T1FF).

Graph and download economic data for New Privately-Owned Housing Units Completed: Single-Family Units (COMPU1UNSA) from Jan 1968 to May 2025 about 1-unit structures, family, new, private, housing, and USA.

Single family programs that support repairs or improvements to existing affordable single family units. Units are counted when projects are approved for payment by HED. Unit totals are adjusted to account for units receiving benefits from multiple HED programs.

Graph and download economic data for New One Family Houses for Sale in the United States (HNFSUSNSA) from Jan 1963 to May 2025 about 1-unit structures, family, new, sales, housing, and USA.

FY2023 Single Family Residential Units Measure

In 2023, about 3.52 million Hispanic families with a single mother were living in the United States. This is an increase from 1990, when there were about 1.19 million Hispanic families with a single mother in the U.S.

Displacement risk indicator classifying census tracts according to single-family home sale prices in census tracts where at least 100 single-family homes exist. We classify arms-length transactions only along two dimensions:

1. The median price of sales within the census tract for the specified year, balancing between nominal sale price and sale price per square foot.
2. The change in median sale price (again balanced between nominal sale price and price per square foot) from the previous year.

Displacement risk indicator showing the number of property transactions of single-family homes recorded by the King County Assessor that can be classified as "flips" (meaning that the home had previously been sold within the past year and that the sale price had increased between sales at least twice as fast as the increase in regional housing Consumer Price Index during the same time period). Summarized at the census tract level; available for every year from 2004 through the most recent year of available data.

Housing Starts Single Family in the United States increased to 924 Thousand units in May from 920 Thousand units in April of 2025. This dataset includes a chart with historical data for the United States Housing Starts Single Family.

Monthly sale price of single-family homes in Connecticut, 2001 through the present. Data updated monthly by the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority and tracked in the following dashboard: https://www.chfa.org/about-us/ct-monthly-housing-market-dashboard/. CHFA has stopped maintaining the dashboard and associated datasets, and this dataset will no longer be updated as of 2022.

United States - Median Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes was 418000.00000 $ in April of 2025, according to the United States Federal Reserve. Historically, United States - Median Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes reached a record high of 432900.00000 in June of 2024 and a record low of 223100.00000 in March of 2016. Trading Economics provides the current actual value, an historical data chart and related indicators for United States - Median Sales Price of Existing Single-Family Homes - last updated from the United States Federal Reserve on June of 2025.