Single Parent Statistics

1. Births to unmarried women constituted 36 percent of all births in 2004, reaching a record high of nearly 1.5 million births. Over half of births to women in their early twenties and nearly 30 percent of births to women ages 25-29 were to unmarried women

   "America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being, 2006" www.childstats.gov

2. Along with the number of births to unmarried women, the birth rate for unmarried women rose in 2004. The 2004 rate of 46 births per 1,000 unmarried women ages 15-44 matches the historic high reported a decade earlier, in 1994

   "America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being, 2006" www.childstats.gov

3. Between 1980 and 1994, the birth rate for unmarried women ages 15-44 increased from 29 to 46 per 1,000. Between 1995 and 2003, the rate has fluctuated little, ranging from 43 to 45 per1,000

   "America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being, 2006" www.childstats.gov

4. In 1995, nearly six of 10 children living with mothers only were near the poverty line. About 45 percent of children raised by divorced mothers and 69 percent by never-married mothers lived in or near poverty, which was $13,003 for a family of three in 1998.

   Census Brief CENBR/97-1, Bureau of the Census www.census.gov, September 1997.

5. 75% of children/adolescents in chemical dependency hospitals are from single-parent families.

   (Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA)

6. More than one half of all youths incarcerated for criminal acts lived in one-parent families when they were children.

   (Children's Defense Fund)

7. 63% of suicides are individuals from single parent families

   (FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin - Investigative Aid)

8. 75% of teenage pregnancies are adolescents from single parent homes

   (Children in need: Investment Strategies...Committee for Economic Development)