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.
In recent years, same-sex marriage has been a contentious subject within many religious groups in the U.S. Here is an overview of where 16 religious groups stand on this issue.
This posting explores statistics about marriage rates, median age at first marriage and attitudes about marriage. Although the marriage rate is at a record low, most never-married Americans say they would like to marry. “Love” is cited more than other factors as a reason to get married, according to a Pew Research Center survey.
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.
At the Population Association of America’s annual conference in San Francisco this week, papers on the recession’s impact on families, wealth, children, young adults, older Americans and other realms of life will be presented in at least 10 of the 200-plus sessions. Much of the research is preliminary, but it raises intriguing questions. One paper tries to assess whether the poor economy has affected divorce rates.
Across the U.S., a fierce debate is taking place between those who hope all gays and lesbians will soon have the right to marry and those who believe that same-sex marriage is helping to undermine heterosexual marriage. Read about the history and current status of the same-sex marriage debate.
The share of new marriages between spouses of a different race or ethnicity from each other increased to 15.1% in 2010, more than double the share in 1980.
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.
In the last 50 years, fathers have become much more involved in the day-to-day lives of the children they live with. During that same time period, though, the share of fathers living apart from their children has risen dramatically, to 27% in 2010.
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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