{"id":14339,"date":"2014-04-30T14:27:09","date_gmt":"2014-04-30T19:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/%year%\/%monthnum%\/%day%\/5-facts-about-the-modern-american-family\/"},"modified":"2024-04-14T03:22:12","modified_gmt":"2024-04-14T08:22:12","slug":"5-facts-about-the-modern-american-family","status":"publish","type":"short-read","link":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/04\/30\/5-facts-about-the-modern-american-family\/","title":{"rendered":"5 facts about the modern American family"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><div class=\"jetpack-video-wrapper\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Next America: Modern Family\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8OQCxgNjbq8?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/div><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The classic nuclear family, the kind imprinted on the American imagination by TV shows like <em>Leave It To Beaver<\/em>, has been left behind. In 1960, 37% of households included a married couple raising their own children. More than a half-century later, just 16% of households look like that.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Here are 5 facts about the modern family:\u00a0<!--more--><\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-has-big-number wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<strong>Americans are putting off life\u2019s big milestones.<\/strong> Today, the median age at first marriage is 29 for men and 27 for women\u2014<a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2014\/03\/07\/millennials-in-adulthood\/3\/\">the highest in modern history<\/a>. (In 2013, more than one-in-four (26%) of people ages 18 to 32 were married. But in 1960, well over half (65%) of Americans were.) Mothers are also waiting longer to have children. In 1960, women ages 15 to 24 accounted for 40% of mothers with infants. By 2011, that number had dropped to 22%.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-has-big-number wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>\u00a0Today, an American woman, on average, is expected to have 1.9 children, <\/strong>compared with a total fertility rate of 3.7 children in 1960. Current levels are below the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/04\/05\/opinion\/sunday\/bye-bye-baby.html?_r=0\">\u201creplacement rate\u201d of about 2.1 children<\/a>, the number of births needed for children to replace their parents in the population. Some European countries have <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/04\/11\/birth-rates-lag-in-europe-and-the-u-s-but-the-desire-for-kids-does-not\/\">lower total fertility rates<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-has-big-number wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<strong>Some 3 million (37% of) lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender adults<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>have had a child at some point in their lives, <\/strong>according to the <a href=\"http:\/\/williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/LGBT-Parenting.pdf\">Williams Institute<\/a>. Among women under the age of 50 who identify as LGBT (and live alone or with a spouse\/partner), about half (48%) have a child younger than 18. Some one-in-five LGBT men say the same.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-has-big-number wp-block-paragraph\"><strong> <\/strong><\/p>\n\n<figure><a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2013\/08\/22\/chapter-3-demographic-economic-data-by-race\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/3\/2013\/08\/SDT-racial-relations-08-2013-03-10.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"411\" height=\"462\"><\/a><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Families today are more blended and differently constructed. Nearly half (44%) of young people ages 18 to 29 <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2011\/01\/13\/a-portrait-of-stepfamilies\/\">have a step sibling<\/a>. About half as many (23%) of those ages 50 to 64\u2014and just 16% of those 65 or older\u2014have a step sibling. <strong>More babies are born to unmarried mothers than ever before.<\/strong> Unmarried women accounted for <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2013\/08\/22\/chapter-3-demographic-economic-data-by-race\/\">41% of births in 2011<\/a>, up from just 5% in 1960.\u00a0In 2011, 72% of births to black women were to unmarried mothers, compared with 53% of births to Hispanic women and 29% of births to white women. (The sample size was too small to analyze results among Asians.) But just <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2013\/05\/10\/record-share-of-new-mothers-are-college-educated\/\">9% of new mothers with a bachelor\u2019s degree<\/a>, regardless of race, were\u00a0unmarried when they gave birth.<\/p>\n\n<p class=\"is-style-has-big-number wp-block-paragraph\">\u00a0<strong>Intermarriage among people of different races is increasingly common. In 1980, just 7% of all marriages in the U.S. were between spouses of a different race or ethnicity. \u00a0<\/strong>In 2010, that share has doubled to <a href=\"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/social-trends\/2012\/02\/16\/the-rise-of-intermarriage\/\">15% of all new marriages in the U.S.<\/a> Hispanics (26%) and Asians (28%) were most likely to \u201cmarry out,\u201d compared with 9% of whites and 17% of blacks.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In 1960, 37% of households included a married couple raising their own children. More than a half-century later, just 16% of households look like that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":302,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"sub_headline":null,"sub_title":"","_crdt_document":"","_prc_public_revisions":[],"_ppp_expiration_hours":0,"_ppp_enabled":false,"ai_generated_summary":"","apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"relatedPosts":[],"_prc_fork_parent":0,"_prc_fork_status":"","_prc_active_fork":0,"datacite_doi":"","datacite_doi_citation":"","_prc_seo_qr_attachment_id":0,"spoken_article_player_enabled":true,"displayBylines":true,"footnotes":"","prc_watchers":[]},"categories":[254,31,229,221,225,223,146],"bylines":[629],"collection":[],"datasets":[],"_post_visibility":[],"formats":[467],"_fund_pool":[],"languages":[],"regions-countries":[515],"research-teams":[519],"workflow-status":[],"class_list":["post-14339","short-read","type-short-read","status-publish","hentry","category-birth-rate-fertility","category-family-relationships","category-fertility","category-household-structure-family-roles","category-intermarriage","category-marriage-divorce","category-racial-intermarriage","bylines-jens-manuel-krogstad","formats-short-read","regions-countries-united-states","research-teams-social-trends"],"label":"Short Read","post_parent":0,"word_count":396,"canonical_url":"https:\/\/alpha.pewresearch.org\/pewresearch-org\/short-reads\/2014\/04\/30\/5-facts-about-the-modern-american-family\/","art_direction":false,"_embeds":[],"watchers":[],"table_of_contents":[],"datacite_doi":"","prc_seo_data":{"title":"5 facts about the modern American family","description":"In 1960, 37% of households included a married couple raising their own children. 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