Americans are more pessimistic than optimistic about the institution of marriage and the family. At the same time, the public is fairly accepting of diverse family arrangements, though some are seen as more acceptable than others.
Most U.S. young adults are at least mostly financially independent and happy with their parents’ involvement in their lives. Parent-child relationships are mostly strong.
Financial independence is one of the many markers used to designate the crossover from childhood into young adulthood, and it’s a milestone most Americans (64%) think young adults should reach by the time they are 22 years old, according to a new Pew Research Center study. But that’s not the reality for most young adults who’ve reached this age.
Today’s working fathers are just as likely as working mothers to say that finding the right balance between their job and their family life is a challenge.
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.