Fewer Young Parents in America, But Millions Still Need Support

The share of youth and young adults ages 18 to 24 who are par­ents in the Unit­ed States has been declin­ing in recent decades, and fell to 7% in 2015–2019. Accord­ing to the lat­est data in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter, this fig­ure also declined for all racial and eth­nic groups and for all states from 2006–2010 to 2015–2019.

Cross-sec­tor efforts have been focused on reduc­ing unplanned preg­nan­cy among youth for many years, and these efforts are work­ing. How­ev­er, while the share of young par­ents is decreas­ing, the nation still has more than 2.1 mil­lion teens and young adults with chil­dren who need sup­port nav­i­gat­ing the dif­fi­cult tran­si­tions to adult­hood and parenthood.

A recent Annie E. Casey Foun­da­tion report on young par­ents described com­mon chal­lenges for this group, includ­ing finan­cial and hous­ing insta­bil­i­ty, inter­rupt­ed edu­ca­tion, employ­ment obsta­cles, par­ent­ing stress, health issues and dif­fi­cul­ty access­ing qual­i­ty child care and health care. The same report also found that 3.4 mil­lion U.S. chil­dren live with par­ents ages 18 to 24, and near­ly 40% of them (most­ly infants, tod­dlers and preschool­ers) live in poverty.

Research indi­cates that pro­vid­ing sup­port to young fam­i­lies at this vul­ner­a­ble time could yield life­long ben­e­fits. Both young par­ents and their young chil­dren are going through crit­i­cal phas­es of brain devel­op­ment, mak­ing this a key oppor­tu­ni­ty to sup­port both groups as they mature cog­ni­tive­ly. Pol­i­cy­mak­ers and oth­ers can help ensure that these par­ents have con­nec­tions with car­ing adults and men­tors, edu­ca­tion­al and work­force train­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties, access to qual­i­ty health care and child care, paid time off from work and oth­er basic forms of sup­port, set­ting them on a path toward fam­i­ly and eco­nom­ic stability.

Young Par­ents Data by State and Territory

At the state lev­el in 2015–2019, the share of young par­ents ranged from 3% in Mass­a­chu­setts to 12% in Arkansas. While the per­cent­age of young par­ents decreased in all states between 2006–2010 and 2015–2019, the declines were espe­cial­ly pro­nounced in Alas­ka, Ida­ho, New Mex­i­co and Wyoming.

This fig­ure dropped in Puer­to Rico, as well, from 13% to 8% dur­ing this timeframe.

Local, state and nation­al lead­ers can build on this momen­tum by con­tin­u­ing to pro­mote efforts to reduce unplanned preg­nan­cy and bol­ster­ing sup­port for young par­ents and their chil­dren, giv­ing par­tic­u­lar con­sid­er­a­tion to the per­spec­tives of par­ents them­selves, the needs of fathers in addi­tion to moth­ers, the needs of par­ents involved in the fos­ter care and jus­tice sys­tems and oppor­tu­ni­ties to advance racial equity.

Con­tin­ue Learn­ing About Young Parents

Explore all data about youth and young adults in the KIDS COUNT Data Cen­ter. Also, learn more about the chal­lenges fac­ing young par­ents and pol­i­cy solu­tions to sup­port them in the Annie E. Casey Foundation’s report, Open­ing Doors for Young Par­ents.