---
title: "More of today’s single mothers have never been married"
description: "More than four-in-ten single mothers have never been married, up from just 4% in 1960."
date: "2013-08-16"
authors:
  - name: "Andrea Caumont"
    job_title: "Associate Director, Digital Outreach"
    link: "https://www.pewresearch.org/staff/andrea-caumont/"
url: "https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/08/16/more-of-todays-single-mothers-have-never-been-married/"
---

# More of today’s single mothers have never been married

![](https://assets.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2013/05/SDT-2013-05-breadwinner-moms-4-2.png)

Today’s single mothers are [much more likely to have never been married](https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/05/29/breadwinner-moms/4/#chapter-4-single-mothers) than were their counterparts in the past.

In 1960, of all single mothers, more than eight-in-ten (82%) were divorced, separated or widowed. An additional 14% were married, but their spouses were not living in the household. Only 4% of all single mothers had never been married.

By 2011, the share of single mothers who had never been married had reached 44%, while half of all single mothers were divorced, separated or widowed, and 6% had an absent spouse.

These patterns are tied to broader long-term trends in non-marital births and divorce. According to [data from the National Center for Health Statistics](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr61/nvsr61_01.pdf) (pdf), the share of births to unmarried women rose to 41% in 2010 from 5% in 1960. And a [recent Census Bureau report](http://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-21.pdf) (pdf) shows that in 2011, 36% of mothers who gave birth in the preceding year were unmarried; a majority of these women (87%) had never been married.

The share of mothers who are divorced, separated or widowed increased in the 1960s and 1970s and has remained relatively stable since 1980, hovering around 12% to 13% in the past three decades.

In the past five decades, the share of never married mothers among all families with children has increased from less than 1% to 11%.