For children, growing diversity in family living arrangementsFamily life is changing. Two-parent households are on the decline in the United States as divorce, remarriage and cohabitation are on the rise. And families are smaller now, both due to the growth of single-parent households and the driblet in fertility. Non but are Americans having fewer children, but the circumstances surrounding parenthood have changed. While in the early on 1960s babies typically arrived inside a marriage, today fully 4-in-10 births occur to women who are unmarried or living with a not-marital partner. At the same time that family structures have transformed, and so has the role of mothers in the workplace – and in the domicile. As more moms have entered the labor force, more have go breadwinners – in many cases, principal breadwinners – in their families.

As a issue of these changes, there is no longer i ascendant family form in the U.S. Parents today are raising their children against a backdrop of increasingly diverse and, for many, constantly evolving family forms. By contrast, in 1960, the height of the post-World State of war Ii infant boom, at that place was one dominant family form. At that time 73% of all children were living in a family with two married parents in their kickoff marriage. By 1980, 61% of children were living in this type of family, and today less than one-half (46%) are. The declining share of children living in what is oft deemed a "traditional" family has been largely supplanted by the rising shares of children living with single or cohabiting parents.

Not only has the diversity in family living arrangements increased since the early 1960s, but so has the fluidity of the family. Non-marital cohabitation and divorce, along with the prevalence of remarriage and (not-marital) recoupling in the U.Due south., make for family structures that in many cases continue to evolve throughout a kid's life. While in the past a kid born to a married couple – as most children were – was very probable to grow upwards in a home with those two parents, this is much less common today, every bit a child'due south living arrangement changes with each adjustment in the human relationship status of their parents. For instance, 1 study found that over a three-twelvemonth period, about three-in-ten (31%) children younger than 6 had experienced a major modify in their family or household structure, in the form of parental divorce, separation, marriage, cohabitation or expiry.

The growing complexity and diversity of families

The two-parent household in declineThe share of children living in a two-parent household is at the lowest betoken in more than half a century: 69% are in this type of family unit arrangement today, compared with 73% in 2000 and 87% in 1960. And fifty-fifty children living with two parents are more than likely to exist experiencing a variety of family unit arrangements due to increases in divorce, remarriage and cohabitation.3 Today, fully 62% of children live with two married parents – an all-fourth dimension low. Some xv% are living with parents in a remarriage and 7% are living with parents who are cohabiting.four Conversely, the share of children living with i parent stands at 26%, upwards from 22% in 2000 and just nine% in 1960.

These changes have been driven in part by the fact that Americans today are exiting marriage at higher rates than in the past. Now, about ii-thirds (67%) of people younger than 50 who had ever married are still in their first marriage. In comparison, that share was 83% in 1960.five And while among men about 76% of first marriages that began in the late 1980s were still intact 10 years later, fully 88% of marriages that began in the late 1950s lasted as long, co-ordinate to analyses of Census Bureau information.6

The rise of unmarried-parent families, and changes in two-parent families

Black children and those with less educated parents less likely to be living in two-parent householdsDespite the turn down over the past half century in children residing with two parents, a bulk of kids are still growing up in this type of living arrangement.vii However, less than half—46%—are living with two parents who are both in their first marriage. This share is downwards from 61% in 19808 and 73% in 1960.

An additional xv% of children are living with two parents, at least one of whom has been married earlier. This share has remained relatively stable for decades.

In the remainder of two-parent families, the parents are cohabiting but are non married. Today 7% of children are living with cohabiting parents; however a far larger share volition feel this kind of living arrangement at some point during their babyhood. For example, estimates suggest that about 39% of children will have had a mother in a cohabiting human relationship by the time they plough 12; and by the time they turn 16, almost one-half (46%) volition take feel with their mother cohabiting. In some cases, this will happen because a never-married female parent enters into a cohabiting relationship; in other cases, a mother may enter into a cohabiting human relationship subsequently a marital breakup.

The turn down in children living in two-parent families has been offset by an well-nigh threefold increase in those living with just one parent—typically the female parent.ix Fully one-quaternary (26%) of children younger than age xviii are at present living with a single parent, upward from but ix% in 1960 and 22% in 2000. The share of children living without either parent stands at 5%; nearly of these children are beingness raised past grandparents.10

The bulk of white, Hispanic and Asian children are living in 2-parent households, while less than half of black children are living in this type of arrangement. Furthermore, at least half of Asian and white children are living with ii parents both in their first matrimony. The shares of Hispanic and black children living with ii parents in their first marriage are much lower.

Asian children are the well-nigh likely to be living with both parents—fully 84% are, including 71% who are living with parents who are both in their first marriage. Some 13% of Asian kids are living in a unmarried-parent household, while 11% are living with remarried parents, and simply 3% are living with parents who are cohabiting.

Roughly eight-in-10 (78%) white children are living with two parents, including virtually one-half (52%) with parents who are both in their first marriage and 19% with two parents in a remarriage; 6% have parents who are cohabiting. About 1-in-five (nineteen%) white children are living with a single parent.

Amidst Hispanic children, 2-thirds live with 2 parents. All told, 43% live with two parents in their start spousal relationship, while 12% are living with parents in a remarriage, and 11% are living with parents who are cohabiting. Some 29% of Hispanic children live with a single parent.

The living arrangements of blackness children stand up in stark contrast to the other major racial and indigenous groups. The bulk – 54% – are living with a single parent. Just 38% are living with two parents, including 22% who are living with two parents who are both in their first marriage. Some nine% are living with remarried parents, and 7% are residing with parents who are cohabiting.

Children with at least one college-educated parent are far more likely to be living in a 2-parent household, and to exist living with ii parents in a beginning marriage, than are kids whose parents are less educated.11 Fully 88% of children who accept at least one parent with a bachelor's degree or more than are living in a 2-parent household, including 67% who are living with two parents in their first marriage.

In comparison, some 68% of children who have a parent with some college experience are living in a two-parent household, and just 40% are living with parents who are both in a kickoff marriage. Near six-in-10 (59%) children who have a parent with a high schoolhouse diploma are in a two-parent household, including 33% who are living with parents in their first marriage. Meanwhile, just over half (54%) of children whose parents lack a loftier schoolhouse diploma are living in a two-parent household, including 33% whose parents are in their get-go union.

Blended families

One-in-six kids is living in a blended familyAccording to the most recent information, 16% of children are living in what the Census Bureau terms "blended families" – a household with a stepparent, stepsibling or half-sibling. This share has remained stable since the early 1990s, when reliable data first became available. At that time 15% of kids lived in composite family unit households. All told, most 8% are living with a stepparent, and 12% are living with stepsiblings or half-siblings.12

Many, but not all, remarriages involve blended families.13 According to data from the National Center for Health Statistics, six-in-x (63%) women in remarriages are in blended families, and about half of these remarriages involve stepchildren who live with the remarried couple.

Hispanic, blackness and white children are as probable to live in a blended family. About 17% of Hispanic and blackness kids are living with a stepparent, stepsibling or a half-sibling, as are 15% of white kids. Among Asian children, however, vii% – a far smaller share – are living in composite families. This low share is consequent with the finding that Asian children are more likely than others to exist living with two married parents, both of whom are in their first marriage.

The shrinking American family

Among women, fertility is decliningFertility in the U.S. has been on the decline since the end of the post-World War II baby boom, resulting in smaller families. In the mid-1970s, a 40% plurality of mothers who had reached the stop of their childbearing years had given nativity to 4 or more children.14 Now, a similar share (41%) of mothers at the terminate of their childbearing years has had two children, and just 14% have had 4 or more children.15

At the same time, the share of mothers ages 40 to 44 who have had only one child has doubled, from 11% in 1976 to 22% today. The share of mothers with three children has remained near unchanged at almost a quarter.

Women'south increasing educational attainment and labor force participation, and improvements in contraception, not to mention the retreat from matrimony, have all likely played a role in shrinking family size.

Among Hispanics and the less educated, bigger familiesFamily size varies markedly beyond races and ethnicities. Asian moms accept the lowest fertility, and Hispanic mothers have the highest. About 27% of Asian mothers and ane-third of white mothers about the end of their childbearing years have had three or more children. Amongst blackness mothers at the cease of their childbearing years, four-in-10 take had three or more children, equally have fully half (50%) of Hispanic mothers.

Similarly, a gap in fertility exists among women with different levels of educational attainment, despite recent increases in the fertility of highly educated women. For instance, just 27% of mothers ages 40 to 44 with a post-graduate degree such as a principal'southward, professional person or doctorate degree have borne three or more children, as accept 32% of those with a bachelor's degree. Amidst mothers in the same historic period group with a high schoolhouse diploma or some college, 38% have had three or more kids, while amid moms who lack a high school diploma, the majority – 55% – have had 3 or more children.

The ascent of births to unmarried women and multi-partner fertility

Not only are women having fewer children today, but they are having them nether unlike circumstances than in the by. While at ane fourth dimension about all births occurred within union, these two life events are now far less intertwined. And while people were much more than likely to "mate for life" in the past, today a sizable share have children with more than than one partner – sometimes inside marriage, and sometimes outside of information technology.

Births to unmarried women

The decoupling of marriage and childbearingIn 1960, just 5% of all births occurred outside of marriage. By 1970, this share had doubled to eleven%, and by 2000 fully one-tertiary of births occurred to unmarried women. Non-marital births continued to rise until the mid-2000s, when the share of births to unmarried women stabilized at around 40%.sixteen

Not all babies built-in outside of a marriage are necessarily living with merely i parent, however. The majority of these births at present occur to women who are living with a romantic partner, according to analyses of the National Survey of Family Growth. In fact, over the by 20 years, most all of the growth in births exterior of spousal relationship has been driven by increases in births to cohabiting women.17

Researchers accept found that, while marriages are less stable than they once were, they remain more stable than cohabiting unions. Past analysis indicates that nigh one-in-5 children born within a spousal relationship will experience the breakup of that marriage past age nine. In comparison, fully one-half of children born within a cohabiting matrimony volition feel the breakup of their parents by the same age. At the same time, children born into cohabiting unions are more than likely than those born to unmarried moms to someday alive with 2 married parents. Estimates propose that 66% will have done and then past the time they are 12, compared with 45% of those who were built-in to unmarried non-cohabiting moms.

The share of births occurring outside of marriage varies markedly across racial and ethnic groups. Amidst black women, 71% of births are now non-marital, equally are nigh half (53%) of births to Hispanic women. In contrast, 29% of births to white women occur outside of a marriage.

For the less educated, more births outside of marriageRacial differences in educational attainment explicate some, but non all, of the differences in not-marital birth rates.

New mothers who are college-educated are far more than probable than less educated moms to be married. In 2014 just 11% of women with a higher degree or more who had a baby in the prior year were single. In comparison, this share was about four times as high (43%) for new mothers with some college but no higher degree. About half (54%) of those with only a loftier school diploma were single when they gave nascence, as were about six-in-x (59%) new mothers who lacked a high school diploma.

Multi-partner fertility

Related to non-marital births is what researchers call "multi-partner fertility." This measure reflects the share of people who have had biological children with more than one partner, either inside or outside of marriage. The increase in divorces, separations, remarriages and serial cohabitations has likely contributed to an increase in multi-partner fertility. Estimates vary, given data limitations, merely analysis of longitudinal data indicates that almost 20% of women near the end of their childbearing years take had children by more than one partner, every bit have about three-in-10 (28%) of those with 2 or more than children. Research indicates that multi-partner fertility is particularly common among blacks, Hispanics, and the less educated.

Parents today: older and better educated

While parents today are far less likely to exist married than they were in the by, they are more likely to be older and to have more education.

In 1970, the average new mother was 21 years old. Since that time, that age has risen to 26 years. The rise in maternal age has been driven largely past declines in teen births. Today, 7% of all births occur to women nether the age of 20; equally recently as 1990, the share was nearly twice equally high (xiii%).

While age at first nascency has increased across all major race and ethnic groups, substantial variation persists across these groups. The average get-go-fourth dimension mom among whites is now 27 years old. The boilerplate age at first nascence among blacks and Hispanics is quite a fleck younger – 24 years – driven in part by the prevalence of teen pregnancy in these groups. Just 5% of births to whites take place prior to age 20, while this share reaches eleven% for not-Hispanic blacks and 10% for Hispanics. On the other end of the spectrum, fully 45% of births to whites are to women ages thirty or older, versus but 31% amongst blacks and 36% amid Hispanics.

Mothers today are as well far meliorate educated than they were in the by. While in 1960 merely xviii% of mothers with infants at dwelling had whatsoever college experience, today that share stands at 67%. This tendency is driven in large part by dramatic increases in educational attainment for all women. While about half (49%) of women ages xv to 44 in 1960 lacked a high school diploma, today the largest share of women (61%) has at to the lowest degree some college feel, and just xix% lack a high schoolhouse diploma.

Mothers moving into the workforce

Among mothers, rising labor force participationIn addition to the changes in family unit structure that take occurred over the past several decades, family life has been greatly affected past the movement of more and more mothers into the workforce. This increase in labor force participation is a continuation of a century-long trend; rates of labor force participation among married women, particularly married white women, have been on the rise since at least the plow of the 20th century. While the labor force participation rates of mothers have more than or less leveled off since about 2000, they remain far higher than they were four decades ago.

In 1975, the first year for which data on the labor force participation of mothers are bachelor, less than one-half of mothers (47%) with children younger than 18 were in the labor force, and most a third of those with children younger than iii years onetime were working outside of the dwelling. Those numbers changed rapidly, and, past 2000, 73% of moms were in the labor force. Labor force participation today stands at 70% amongst all mothers of children younger than eighteen, and 64% of moms with preschool-aged children. About three-fourths of all employed moms are working full time.

Amongst mothers with children younger than 18, blacks are the nearly likely to exist in the labor force –about three-fourths are. In comparison, this share is lxx% among white mothers. Some 64% of Asian mothers and 62% of Hispanic mother are in the workforce. The relatively high proportions of immigrants in these groups likely contribute to their lower labor force involvement – foreign-born moms are much less likely to be working than their U.S.-born counterparts.

The more educational activity a mother has, the more likely she is to be in the labor force. While about half (49%) of moms who lack a high school diploma are working, this share jumps to 65% for those with a high schoolhouse diploma. Fully 75% of mothers with some college are working, as are 79% of those with a college degree or more than.

Along with their movement into the labor force, women, even more than than men, have been attaining higher and college levels of education. In fact, among married couples today, it is more common for the married woman to have more than education than the hubby, a reversal of previous patterns. These changes, along with the increasing share of single-parent families, mean that more ever, mothers are playing the role of breadwinner—ofttimes the master breadwinner—within their families.

In four-in-ten families, mom is the primary breadwinnerToday, 40% of families with children nether eighteen at abode include mothers who earn the majority of the family income.xviii This share is up from 11% in 1960 and 34% in 2000. The bulk of these breadwinner moms—eight.three million—are either unmarried or are married and living apart from their spouse.19 The remaining 4.nine million, who are married and living with their spouse, earn more than than their husbands. While families with married breadwinner moms tend to accept higher median incomes than married-parent families where the male parent earns more ($88,000 vs. $84,500), families headed past unmarried mothers have incomes far lower than unmarried male parent families. In 2014, the median annual income for unmarried mother families was just $24,000.

Breadwinner moms are particularly common in blackness families, spurred past very loftier rates of single motherhood. Nearly three-fourths (74%) of black moms are breadwinner moms. Almost are unmarried or living apart from their spouse (61%), and the remainder (xiii%) earn more than than their spouse. Among Hispanic moms, 44% are the chief breadwinner; 31% are unmarried, while 12% are married and making more than their husbands. For white mothers, 38% are the main breadwinners—20% are single moms, and 18% are married and have income college than that of their spouses. Asian families are less likely to have a adult female as the main breadwinner in their families, presumably due to their extremely low rates of single motherhood. Just 11% of Asian moms are unmarried. The share who earn more than their husbands—20%— is somewhat higher than for the other racial and indigenous groups.

The flip side of the movement of mothers into the labor strength has been a dramatic decline in the share of mothers who are now stay-at-domicile moms. Some 29% of all mothers living with children younger than 18 are at habitation with their children. This marks a modest increase since 1999, when 23% of moms were home with their children, just a long-term decline of about 20 percentage points since the late 1960s when about half of moms were at habitation.

While the prototype of "stay-at-home mom" may conjure images of "Exit It to Beaver" or the highly affluent "opt-out mom", the reality of stay-at-domicile motherhood today is quite dissimilar for a large share of families. In roughly three-in-ten of stay-at-home-mom families, either the begetter is not working or the female parent is unmarried or cohabiting. As such, stay-at-domicile mothers are generally less well off than working mothers in terms of education and income. Some 49% of stay-at-home mothers have at most a high-schoolhouse diploma compared with 30% amidst working mothers. And the median household income for families with a stay-at-dwelling mom and a full-fourth dimension working dad was $55,000 in 2014, roughly half the median income for families in which both parents work full-time ($102,400).20