The Family - Family Households With Children

Family households are those with two or more people related by blood, marriage, or adoption. This chart presents data on family households that include unmarried children under the age of 18 years. The first bar is all families with children under 18. The second and third bars disaggregate this total into married-couple and single-parent households, both with children under 18.

As we saw in the previous panel, the number of households that fit the "family household" category has declined. The number of family households with children is also declining as a percentage of all family households.

In part this decline is due to the fact that the under-18 age group has dropped as a percent of population. The diamond-shaped markers indicate the percentage of the population aged 19 years or younger³. Young people have declined as a percentage of total population between 1970 and 1980 — from 38 to 32%. In the 1970s the last of the Baby Boom generation was still in its teens. By the 1980s, boomers were all into their twenties. Not surprisingly, families with children under 18 are down.

The number of families made up of Mom, Dad, and children also has declined. Single-parent households have almost doubled — from 6% to 11% — in the 30-year period presented here. If we look at married couples and single-parent households as a percentage of family households with children, instead of as a percentage of all family households (including those without children), the rise in single-parent households is even more pronounced.

The top portion of each of the bars to the left represents that percentage of households with children under 18 and a single parent — 13% in 1970, just over a tenth of families with children. In 2000 that figure had risen to 31%, just shy of one-third of all families with children under 18.

Many factors influence the rise in single-parent households. To name two: children born to unwed mothers have risen in number; the number of divorcing couples who have children has increased⁴. In the next panel, we will look at children living in various arrangements. Here, we limit the discussion to the percentage of households and not the number of children involved.

Households in the United States have lost "membership," as we have seen: fewer people per household. In this panel we have seen the decline in both percent of the population age 19 or younger and percent of family households raising young children. Has the number of children per family also declined? How many children are living in single-parent versus two-parent households? These are the questions we turn to next.

Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census. All Parent Child Situations by Type, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Householder or Reference Person, 1970 to Present. Online. Available: http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/hh-fam/tabHH-1.txt. June 29, 2001. Data are based on the Current Population Survey; America's Families and Living Arrangements 2000. Current Population Report issued in June 2001.