Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Home Research Topics Family & Relationships Parenthood

Parenthood

Icon for promotion number 1

Sign up for our weekly newsletter

Fresh data delivered Saturday mornings

Thank you for subscribing!

All

Parenthood

Publications

  • report

    The Public Renders a Split Verdict On Changes in Family Structure

    The American public is sharply divided in its judgments about the sweeping changes in the structure of the American family that have unfolded over the past half century. About a third generally accepts the changes; a third is tolerant but skeptical; and a third considers them bad for society.

  • report

    The Decline of Marriage And Rise of New Families

    The pre-eminent family unit of the mid-20th century—mom, dad and the kids—no longer has the stage to itself. A variety of new arrangements have emerged, giving rise to a broader and evolving definition of what constitutes a family.

  • report

    Census Data on Childless Women

    A new report on childless women from the Pew Research Center uses data from the Current Population Survey to track recent trends and describe this group’s demographic characteristics.

  • report

    Childlessness Up Among All Women; Down Among Women with Advanced Degrees

    Nearly one-in-five American women ends her childbearing years without having borne a child, compared with one-in-ten in the 1970s. While childlessness has risen for all racial and ethnic groups, and most education levels, it has fallen over the past decade for women with advanced degrees.

  • report

    The Typical Modern Mother: There Isn’t One

    Today’s mothers of newborns are more likely than their counterparts two decades earlier to be ages 35 and older, to have some college education, to be unmarried or to be nonwhite — but not all at once.

  • report

    The New Demography of American Motherhood

    Today’s mothers of newborns are older and better educated than their counterparts in 1990, according to a Pew Research Center analysis of data from the National Center for Health Statistics and U.S. Census Bureau. They are less likely to be white and less likely to be married.

  • report

    U.S. Birth Rate Decline Linked to Recession

    There is a strong association between the magnitude of fertility change in 2008 across states and key economic indicators including changes in per capita income, housing prices and share of the working-age population that is employed across states.

  • report

    The Harried Life of the Working Mother

    Women now make up almost half of the U.S. labor force, up from 38% in 1970. The public approves of this trend, but the change has come with a cost for many women — particularly working mothers of young children, who feel the tug of family responsibility much more acutely than do working fathers.

  • short reads

    Happy Father’s Day, Love Mom

    Fully 72% of married moms who work say dads are now doing as good a job or better than their counterparts did a generation ago.