FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
TUESDAY, MARCH 27, 2007

• Mike Bergman
• Public Information Office
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• CB07-46
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Single-Parent Households Showed Little Variation
Since 1994, Census Bureau Reports

     The percentage of households headed by single parents showed little variation from 1994 through 2006, at about 9 percent, up from 5 percent in 1970, according to the latest data on America’s families and households released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

     According to Families and Living Arrangements: 2006, there were 12.9 million one-parent families in 2006 — 10.4 million single-mother families and 2.5 million single-father families.

     Just over two-thirds (67 percent) of the nation’s 73.7 million children younger than 18 lived with two married parents in 2006. Also in 2006, there were an estimated 5.8 million stay-at-home parents: 5.6 million mothers and 159,000 fathers.

     Other highlights:

• Average household size in 2006 was 2.57 people, down from 3.14 in 1970.
• Slightly more than one in four households (26 percent) consisted of a person living alone in 2006, up from 17 percent in 1970.
• About 5.7 million children, or 8 percent of the total, lived in a household that included a grandparent in 2006. The majority of these children (3.7 million) lived in the grandparent’s home, and of these, about 60 percent had a parent present.
• Among the 13 million children 15 to 17, about 2.3 million were working, and of these, 2.2 million worked part time.
• In 2006, 33 percent of males and 26 percent of females 15 and older had never married, up from 28 and 22 percent in 1970.
• The majority of men and women in 2006 had been married by the time they were 30 to 34 (71 percent), and among men and women 65 and older, 96 percent had been married.

     Data are from the 2006 Current Population Survey’s (CPS) Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), conducted in February, March and April at about 100,000 addresses nationwide.

Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error. For more information on the source of the data and accuracy of the estimates, including standard errors and confidence intervals, go to Appendix G of <http://www.census.gov/apsd/techdoc/cps/cpsmar06.pdf>.