Family Life

An interesting trend in family life, one that almost everyone knows about, is the growth in single parent families. So, it isn't much surprise to anyone that many households (60 percent in 2006) with a female householder contain children. It might be slightly more surprising to know that almost half of households with an unmarried male householder have children. Some might see this as evidence for a sudden increase in men taking custody of children in the event of divorce. It is not. No, this is because of an increase in unmarried couples living together with children, sometimes their own children, sometimes children from a previous relationship.


















What I find surprising in the above graph is that the household type that is least likely to have children is a married couple household. You might think then that most children are raise in single parent families. This would be wrong...By far, most children live in married couple households. This is possible because most households, with children or not, are maintained by a married couple.