Information gathered by the U.S. Census Bureau has revealed that just 17.8 per cent of households in the United States feature married parents with children under the age of 18. It represents a significant fall of 40 per cent since the 1970s and is the lowest number of traditional ‘nuclear families’ ever recorded.
The statistics come from the 2021 Current Population Survey’s Annual Social and Economic Supplement (ASEC), which collects workforce data as well as data on a range of characteristics of households, living arrangements, married and unmarried couples, and children.
The recent census data showed that the number of American households with a traditional ‘nuclear family’ of a married couple and children has roughly halved since the 1970s. The Census Bureau also found that the average age for marriage in the US has increased, and is now 38.6 years; in the 1950s and 1960s, women typically got married at 20.4 years old. The average age for men to marry for the first time was 30.4 years old in 2021.
America’s fertility rate is also on the decline, dropping to 55.4 births per 1,000 in the second quarter of 2021, down from 58.5 per cent in the same period of 2019. Americans are also living alone at a higher rate than they used to.
Over 37 million American adults lived alone in early 2021, an increase from 33 million in 2011. The percentage of adults in the US living with a spouse now sits at 50%, a decrease from 52 per cent a decade ago. This is a significant drop from 1960, when census data showed that 87 per cent of adults lived with a spouse.
In the last 20 years in particular, there has been a decrease in people living with a spouse, and more people are now either living alone or living together outside of marriage, in what can only be perceived as a societal trend away from marriage.
This is also evidenced in statistics which show that in 2021, 34 per cent of those aged 15 and over reported having never been married, which was a significant increase from 23 per cent in 1950.
The last census of the Irish population, which took place in 2016, indicated similar trends, and a move away from the traditional family.
The number of cohabiting couples with children increased by 25 per cent from the previous 2011 census. The number of one parent families in Ireland stood at 218,817 in 2016 of which 189,112 were mothers and 29,705 were fathers. The majority, 125,840, had just one child.
One parent families with children increased by 1.5 per cent on the previous census to 75,587. The next census is set to be carried out in 2022, and is likely to indicate a significant fall in birth rates after figures from the Central Statistics Office, released in May, indicated that Irish births were down 6.4% in 2020, a huge drop of 25% over ten years.
The enormous cumulative drop in the Irish birth rate has added to concerns about a shrinking and ageing population leading to a fall off in economic growth and an inability to meet future pension and healthcare needs.