As Millennials Near 40, They’re Approaching Family Life Differently Than Previous Generations
Three-in-ten Millennials live with a spouse and child, compared with 40% of Gen Xers at a comparable age.
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Three-in-ten Millennials live with a spouse and child, compared with 40% of Gen Xers at a comparable age.
As more U.S. adults are delaying marriage – or forgoing it altogether – the share who have ever lived with an unmarried partner has been on the rise.
The share of U.S. children living with an unmarried parent has more than doubled since 1968, jumping from 13% to 32% in 2017.
One-in-four parents living with a child in the United States today are unmarried, up from 7% in 1968. A growing share of unmarried parents are cohabiting partners.
In the past 10 years, the share of U.S. adults living without a spouse or partner has climbed to 42%, up from 39% in 2007.
Long-term growth in total U.S. births has been driven by the foreign born, who accounted for 23% of all babies born in 2014.
In 2014, 40% of births were to unmarried mothers, a slight decline from the 41% share that had held steady since 2008. Although the single percentage point drop in 2014 was small, it was only the third one-year dip in this measure since the end of World War II.
One-in-five adults ages 25 and older have never married, up from 9% in 1960. Shifting public attitudes toward marriage, hard economic times and changing demographic patterns may have all played a role.
For the first time in decades, the non-marital birth rate in the U.S. has been declining. It’s likely that the decline occurred as a result of the economic recession of 2007-2009.
A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.
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