In the United States alone, single parenting seems to be quite a common sight. There are a number of proven single parent families’ statistics that basically provide insight on the fact that a number of children come from single parent homes.
As the years pass on by, the number of births occurring to women who are not married continues to increase. In fact, by 2004, there were about 1.5 million births to unwed women that took place just in that year alone. More than half of the women in their early 20’s were unwed when they gave birth to their baby; quite a few were single mother living with parents.
Divorce and Single Parenting
Divorce is often a common cause behind single parenting. There are a plenty of divorce parents statistics, including the fact that the current divorce rate will leave around 1.5 million children living in a household with only one parent in a few years from now. In this day and age, it is more common for a couple to divorce one another instead of trying to make it work for the children, which was a common practice a few decades ago. A study that was done back in 2003 showed that nearly 70% of all children in the United States were living in a different type of household (instead of having both biological parents living in the home). Nearly 30% of these children were living with at least one step-parent at the time while a total of 6% of the children were living with their grandparents. A total of 23% of these children lived with their mother only while only 4% lived with their father. So they are prone to single parent family’s effects on children.
Single Parenting in the 90’s
Throughout the 90’s, the number of children living in single parent homes dramatically increased. During that time, there were a total of around 7.6 million single mothers living in the United States. These are simply the number of parents who officially had sole custody. While the number of single parents has increased over the years, so has single parent adoption.
There are also women and men who chose to adopt a child even though they were single and are not in a relationship of any sort. According to the single parent adoption statistics, older women are more likely than men to adopt a child even if they are single and not tied down to a relationship. These women may also have been a foster parent at some point in time prior to choosing adoption. Single parent adoptees typically tend to adopt children who are considered to have special needs and would need more care than the average child. Over the past decade, the number of single parent adoptions has also increased manifold and with single parents grants from the government, it is quite possible that the former can benefit from these.