The Changing Shape of the American Family

To pique your interest in the online chat with sociologist Rosanna Hertz I’m hosting tomorrow night, I wanted to share some statistics she sent me about the changing shape of the American family.

• Less than 25% of all families consist of a married, opposite-sex couple living with their own (biological or adopted) children—down from 40% in 1970.
• While most children do live with two parents today (including stepparents), most will also at some point live with only one parent.
• One third of all births are to women who are not married. Half of them are not teen mothers, but rather women over the age of 20. This number doesn’t distinguish between those cohabitating with a partner and those living alone— regardless, it shows that marriage and family are no longer the coterminous institutions they once were. (The one third also does not include women who adopt, since we do not know how many women adopt on their own.)
• For women over 30 years old, 8% birthed children on their own in 1970, but today the proportion has jumped to 12%.
• Finally, a figure pointing to the continued need for childcare: “Among children living with single parents, 69% have an employed parent. . . . The women in these families are not selfish careerists, as they have often been (and still are) characterized. Women seek employment for the same reasons men do: they need a paycheck, they want personal rewards, and they wish to do meaningful work.” (From Hertz and Marshall, Working Families.)

Join us here tomorrow night at 9:00 p.m. EDT to learn more about these demographic and social changes and to discuss practical advice for single moms and others.

via Twitter, Facebook, Digg, e-mail, and more
12:10 am Books for Moms, Coping, Family Creation, Parenting, Selves and Identities

« Weekly Political Roundup | Previous

Next | Working Mother Names Best Companies for Parents »

4 Responses to “The Changing Shape of the American Family”

1. 
   Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms » Blog Archive » Marriage, Children, and Party: Some Statistics and Assumptions
   on Nov 15th, 2006
   @ 5:29 pm: 

   [...] “Clearly the best way?” “Kids who don’t have that advantage?” Dennis Cauchon, the USA TODAY writer, never questions those statements. Let’s look at the Census again, though: [...]

2. 
   Mombian: Sustenance for Lesbian Moms » Blog Archive » Seasonal Thoughts on the Evolving Family
   on Nov 27th, 2006
   @ 11:40 am: 

   [...] And they are being created, as the articles above indicate. While France may be ahead of the U. S. in terms of the number and acceptance of unmarried straight couples, the U. S. is shifting, too. Less than 25% of all American families consist of a married, opposite-sex couple living with their own (biological or adopted) children—down from 40% in 1970. (Some of the 15% drop is because of a rise in countable same-sex couples, but not all.) There is a point, moreover, at which these trends impact LGBT rights. One of the reasons voters shot down the amendment to ban domestic partnerships and same-sex marriage in Arizona was that opponents of the ban convinced opposite-sex couples of the constraints the ban would impose on their lives. [...]

3. 
   Love rules at LesbianDad
   on Nov 27th, 2006
   @ 5:57 pm: 

   [...] Thanks today to Dana, at Mombian, for “Seasonal Thoughts on the Evolving Family.” In it, she (as did Liza at LesbianFamily.org a few days back) ruminates on a number of contemporary reports about evolving family structures, both as a result of LGBT families’ boundary-stretching, and because of changing practices on the part of heterosexual folk — delaying or avoiding marriage, becoming single parents by choice, and more. In her piece she reminds us of something she’d written about in late September, stats I think all “non-traditional” family folk should know, that Less than 25% of all American families consist of a married, opposite-sex couple living with their own (biological or adopted) children—down from 40% in 1970. (Some of the 15% drop is because of a rise in countable same-sex couples, but not all.) [...]

4. 
   Mombian » Blog Archive » Bionic Mother
   on Sep 27th, 2007
   @ 2:49 pm: 

   [...] track team. Let’s hear it for another depiction of a non-traditional family—one of the 75% that don’t consist of a married, opposite-sex couple living with their own children. It [...]