The American family may be under stress, but most children still live in two-parent households, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.
Over all, 7 in 10 children live with two parents, about two-thirds live with two married parents, and about 6 in 10 live with both biological parents, according to the latest analysis, which is drawn from 2004 surveys.
In 1970, 85 percent of children were living with two parents and 11 percent with their mother only, proportions that shifted to a little more than 70 percent and slightly more than 20 percent, respectively, in 1990.
The comparable figures in 2004 were about 70 percent and 23 percent. The figures suggest that the tumultuous shifts in family structure since the late 1960s have leveled off since 1990.
“We’re not seeing the rapid change that was going on between 1970 and 1990,” said Rose M. Kreider, a Census Bureau demographer and author of the study of children’s living arrangements. “Evidently, we’re at a place where things are not moving very fast.”
Still, more than 1 in 4 children were living with only one parent.
The proportion who lived with two parents varied widely by race and ethnicity — 87 percent of Asians, 78 percent of non-Hispanic whites, 68 percent of Hispanics and 38 percent of blacks.
Among the nearly 19 million children living with their unmarried biological mothers, 18 percent were living in households where the mother had a partner.
Over all, 94 percent of the nation’s more than 73 million children were living with at least one biological parent, 8 percent lived with at least one stepparent, 2 percent lived with at least one adoptive parent, nearly 4 percent were living without either parent, and a little more than 2 percent were living with their grandparents only.
Nearly 4 in 10 children lived with at least one sibling.
