Statistics on Single Parenting and the Average Single Parent

Statistics on Single Parenting ...

... are not what you've been led to believe. Used to be, people felt guilty about raising children without two parents living together in the home, but more and more children are being raised by one parent. To give you some perspective, in 1980, seventy-seven percent of underage children lived with both parents, while in 1990, only sixty-eight percent of children lived in a two-parent home. The U.S. Census Bureau tells us that we currently have 13.6 million single parents raising 21.2 million children in this country. In other words, If you're a single parent, you are not alone.

If you're searching for statistics on single parenting, then the question foremost in your mind might be: is there a causal link between being raised with one parent in the home and delinquent behavior like violence or drug use? You'll be happy to know that while no direct links have been found, poor parenting (whether by one or both parents) is a contributing cause when youths go wrong. Parents who engage and pay attention to their children raise kids who care about their lives now and in the future. To learn more about how to engage your kids and raise them to develop their natural strengths and grow up to lead a life that is an expression of those strengths, click on parenting book (understanding these concepts is essential whether you're single or married).

While it's true that kids who live with both parents generally have more educational and financial advantages than those brought up in single parent homes, kids whose parents are divorced have a bigger advantage than those who were never married (because never-married parents tend to be young and less educated—two-thirds of them have never finished high school and therefore, have a lower income level and a greater tendency to live in rented homes.)

Let's use statistics on single parenting to create a profile of the average single parent of today (courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau). The typical single parent is overwhelmingly female (84% of children live with their mother, while 16% live with their father). The majority of single parents do not live in poverty (30% of single mothers and 11 percent of single fathers live below the poverty level with 31 percent of these numbers getting public assistance). Although single parents make less money than their married counterparts. almost 80 percent of single mothers work full time, while 92 percent of single fathers are gainfully employed. More than half of the single parents in this country are raising an only child. Thirty-eight percent of single mothers are forty years old and older.

Statistics on Single Parenting - Single Parenting

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