Via Marketwatch

The American family has changed a lot over the last 50 years.

About one-quarter of parents living with a child in America in 2018 are unmarried, up from 7% five decades ago, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau data released Wednesday. This trend to co-parent without getting married has also reduced the rate of single mothers, who accounted for 53% of unmarried parents last year versus 88% five decades ago, the study found. Today, 35% of all unmarried parents are living with a partner.



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However, cohabiting parents are younger, less educated and less likely to have ever been married than single or solo parents, the report said. Single parents have fewer children on average than cohabiting parents. The share of unmarried parents who are fathers has more than doubled to 29% over the past 50 years, the report said. A larger share of solo parents than cohabiting parents live in poverty (27% versus 16%).

Single motherhood is at its lowest point in more than 50 years

In fact, the share of children living in a two-parent household is at the lowest point in more than half a century, according to a separate 2014 report, “Parenting in America,” also released by the Pew Research Center. Approximately 69% of children are in two-parent households versus 73% in 2000 and 87% in 1960. And 62% of children live with two married parents — an all-time low.

Non-traditional families now also outnumber traditional two-parent families. The share of children living in one-parent households make up around 26% of all households with children, up from 22% in 2000 and 9% in 1960, and they were more likely to live in poverty. In 2014, 31% of children living in single-parent households were living below the poverty line versus 21% with two cohabiting parents and 10% with two married parents.

An increasing number of single mothers are going to college

The number of single moms in college has soared to 2.1 million in 2012, more than double the number in 1999. Single moms account for over 11% of college students, up from 7.8% in 1999. This was more than twice the rate of growth experienced by the undergraduate student population over the same time period. Yet, due to the financial demands of running a single-parent household, they also struggle to graduate.

“You could look at this as a decline of traditional marriage, but I think it’s better described as an increase in family diversity,” Philip Cohen, a sociology professor at the University of Maryland and author of “The Family: Diversity, Inequality, and Social Change,” told MarketWatch. He said people are marrying later, cohabiting instead of marrying, becoming single parents, or forming blended families. “There’s been an explosion of family diversity in the last half century.”