Rising Share of U.S. Adults Are Living Without a Spouse or Partner
On key economic outcomes, single adults at prime working age increasingly lag behind those who are married or cohabiting
Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World
On key economic outcomes, single adults at prime working age increasingly lag behind those who are married or cohabiting
A majority of women say they have experienced harassing behavior from someone they went on a date with.
The share of U.S. children living with an unmarried parent has more than doubled since 1968, jumping from 13% to 32% in 2017.
One-in-four parents living with a child in the United States today are unmarried, up from 7% in 1968. A growing share of unmarried parents are cohabiting partners.
In the past 10 years, the share of U.S. adults living without a spouse or partner has climbed to 42%, up from 39% in 2007.
One-in-five adults ages 25 and older have never married, up from 9% in 1960. Shifting public attitudes toward marriage, hard economic times and changing demographic patterns may have all played a role.
A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.
The number of Americans who recently wed has been declining for years, and 2011 was no exception, according to estimates from the American Community Survey. An estimated 4.2 million Americans were newlyweds in 2011, about the same as in 2010 and sharply lower than in 2008.
Barely half of all adults in the United States—a record low—are currently married, and the median age at first marriage has never been higher for brides and grooms.
This posting discusses the challenges for the Census Bureau in counting same-sex couples, married and unmarried. The accuracy of data depends on responses in Census Bureau questionnaires and bureau procedures to collect and edit responses, and the posting describes both.
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