U.S. Children Most Likely to Grow Up With Married Parents in 2017

In 2017, 66% of chil­dren in the Unit­ed States lived in mar­ried-cou­ple house­holds, 25% lived in moth­er-only house­holds and 8% were in father-only house­holds.^*

For this same pop­u­la­tion, the data show that 4% of chil­dren were liv­ing in the care of their grand­par­ents and 8% were in cohab­it­ing house­holds. These rates have remained rel­a­tive­ly steady since 2010.

At the state lev­el, Utah saw the high­est rate of chil­dren liv­ing in mar­ried-cou­ple house­holds — 81% — while Mis­sis­sip­pi and Louisiana saw the low­est at 56%.

While every fam­i­ly is unique, chil­dren grow­ing up in sin­gle-par­ent house­holds typ­i­cal­ly have access to few­er eco­nom­ic resources and valu­able time with adults com­pared to kids in mar­ried-cou­ple house­holds. For exam­ple, 31% of sin­gle-par­ent fam­i­lies with chil­dren lived in pover­ty in 2017 com­pared to just 7% of mar­ried-cou­ple fam­i­lies with children.

^*Because of round­ing, per­cent­ages do not add up to 100%.

Data About Fam­i­ly Struc­ture in the KIDS COUNT Data Center

• Child pop­u­la­tion by house­hold type
• Chil­dren in sin­gle-par­ent families
• Chil­dren in the care of grandparents
• Chil­dren liv­ing with cohab­it­ing domes­tic partners