In 2022, about 60 percent of Hispanic origin children lived with two married parents in the United States. On the other hand, about 4.3 percent of Hispanic origin children in the country lived with their father only.

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.

The number of single parents housing underage children in Germany has been increasing with figures for single fathers amounting to 181 thousand in 2018. In comparison, the number of single mothers with underage children amounted to roughly 1.3 million that year, a decrease compared to the previous years, in which the number amounted to almost 1.4 million.

Single parents

General statistics on households with children in Germany show that most families had one child, though it is not always possible to determine whether this was a household with one parent or two. Reasons for being a single parent may vary. It may be due to a court-appointed decision after a divorce, the death of a partner or other circumstances which might have led to parenting a child or children alone. When considering single mothers, additional reasons may include having children outside of a relationship or biological fathers refusing to be involved in raising children. These are only a few examples. As far as families with underage children are concerned, most German households had two children under the age of 18.

Child benefits

In many ways, Germany is a country which encourages and supports the population in having children, also financially. Monthly child benefit payments increase with more offspring. Single parents are also eligible for an alimony advance until their child turns 18, if not being financially supported by the second parent.

About 13.2 percent of households in Nigeria had, as of 2018, children being raised with neither their mother nor their father present. In addition, 7.3 percent of all households had children with one dead parent and an unknown survival status of the other parent.

This statistic presents the percentage of underage children living in a single-parent family in France in 2018, distributed by region. It reveals that with 57.4 percent of children living with only one parent, Martinique was the French region with the highest rate of children living in a single-parent family.

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.

This graph presents the percentage of single-parent families with children under 18 years of age in France from 1990 to 2020. It appears that the share of single-parents families went from 12.4 percent in 1990 to 24.7 percent in 2020.

In 2023, there were about 1.18 million Black families with a single father living in the United States. This is an increase from 1990, when there were 472,000 Black families with a single father in the U.S.

From 2013 to 2023, the total number of nuclear family households in Iceland increased. Over this period, married couples without children made up the most common type of nuclear family households, reaching 35,000 in 2023. Married couples with children made up the second most common type of households, followed by people in a consensual union with children.

The most common type of household in Sweden in 2023 was the single-person household without children, which amounted to more than two million. The second most common household type was cohabiting or married couples living without children. The number of households in Sweden in 2023 amounted to nearly 4.9 million. Different age distribution for men and women in single-person households The age distribution for single-person households in Sweden looks very different between men and women. The most common age for people living in single-person households among women was from 75 to 84 years, followed by the age group 65 to 74 years. The highest number of single-person households among men was found among men from 25 to 34 years. Increasing number of single-person households The number of single-person households increased annually from 2012 to 2022. Within this time period, the number of single-person households grew from around 1.7 million, up to over two million.

In 2023, there were about 1.49 million single-parent households in South Korea. Single-parent households accounted for about 6.6 percent of total households in South Korea that year.