What percentage of U.S. mothers are single moms?
Single parent
In the United States, 83% of single parents are mothers. Among this percentage of single mothers: 45% of single mothers are currently divorced or separated, 1.7% are widowed, 34% of single mothers never have been married. Although decades ago, having a child outside of marriage and/or being a single mother was not prominent. Census information from 1960 tells us that in that year, only nine percent of children lived in single parent families. Today four out of every ten children are born to an unwed mother.
South Park, Los Angeles
In 2000 there were 1,607 families headed by single parents, or 27.9%. The percentages of never-married women (39.1) and never-married men (45.5).
Homelessness in the United States
In the year 2009, one out of 50 children or 1.5 million children in United States of America will be homeless each year. There were an estimated 57,849 homeless veterans estimated in the United States during January 2013, or 12 percent of all homeless adults. Just under 8 percent of homeless U.S. veterans are female. Texas, California and Florida have the highest numbers of unaccompanied homeless youth under the age of 18, comprising 58% of the total homeless under 18 youth population. Homelessness affects men more than women. In the United States, about 60% of all homeless adults are men.
Employment discrimination
Within women, another level of discrimination takes place among mothers. Historically, this inequality stems from the belief that mothers are less productive at work. Visibly pregnant women are often judged as less committed to their jobs, less dependable, and more emotional compared to women who aren't visibly pregnant. A study conducted in 1998 showed that the wage rates of women without children were 81.3% of men's pay, but 73.4% of men's pay for women with children. An audit study in 2007 found that, childless women receive 2.1 times as many callbacks than equally qualified mothers. Though it doesn't receive as much attention as the gender gap, motherhood is a significant quality that is discriminated against. In fact, the pay gap between mothers and non-mothers is larger than the pay gap between men and women.
The Williams Institute, a national think tank at UCLA School of Law, released a 2011 report that has identified sexual orientation and gender identification discrimination in the workplace. According to the report, between 15-43% of lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender workers have experienced being fired, denied promotions, or harassed due to their sexual orientation or gender identification. Additionally, only 20 states in the United States of America prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the workplace. Wisconsin and New Hampshire prohibit discrimination based on sexual orientation but not gender identity. On October 4, 2017 Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that the United States Department of Justice will no longer provide employment protection to transgender individuals under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, reversing the position of former Attorney General Eric Holder, during the Obama administration.
Abortion in the United States
Abortion is common among religiously identified women. According to the Guttmacher Institute, "more than 7 in 10 U.S. women obtaining an abortion report a religious affiliation (37% protestant, 28% Catholic, and 7% other), and 25% attend religious services at least once a month. The abortion rate for protestant women is 15 per 1,000 women, while Catholic women have a slightly higher rate, 22 per 1,000."
Incarceration of women in the United States
There is 6.7 percent of African American children whose parents are incarcerated, a rate that is seven and half times greater than that for white children, and Hispanic children experience parental incarceration at nearly three times the rate that white children do. Children feel the mother absences and experience disruption than their father. "Men are more likely to rely on their children mothers to care for the children during their incarceration than women can on the children father. 88 percent of father in prison report that their children are being cared for by their child mother while only 37 percent of inmate mothers say their child is being cared for by the child's father". Children in most cases stay with relatives such as grandparents and 10 percent in foster care, group home or social service agency. Children often feel stigma for having a parent in prison where they may feel the need to keep it a secret where they are not able to adjust. Most of the time these children are at risk to follow in the footsteps of their parents where they might become criminals by learning the behavior. Caregivers and teachers see the children of criminals fighting more and becoming aggressive leading them to have a higher risk of conviction.
Maternal mortality in the United States
Healthy People is a federal organization that is managed by the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (ODPHP) at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2010, the US maternal mortality ratio was 12.7 (deaths per 100,000 live births). This was 3 times as high as the Healthy People 2010 goal, a national target set by the US government.
Divorce in the United States
In their 1997 study titled "Child Custody Policies and Divorce Rates in the US," Kuhn and Guidubaldi find it reasonable to conclude that women anticipate advantages to being single, rather than remaining married. In their detailed analysis of divorce rates, Kuhn and Guidubaldi conclude that acceptance of joint physical custody may reduce divorce. States whose family law policies, statutes, or judicial practice encourage joint custody have shown a greater decline in their divorce rates than those that favor sole custody.
Single parent
In the United States, the rate of unintended pregnancy is higher among unmarried couples than among married ones. In 1990, 73% of births to unmarried women were unintended at the time of conception, compared to about 44% of births overall.
Maternity leave in the United States
Between 1961 and 1965, only 14% of mothers participated in the workforce within 6 months of their child's birth.
Family structure in the United States
Stay-at-home dads or "househusbands" are fathers that do not participate in the workforce and stay at home to raise their children—the male equivalent to housewives. Stay-at-home dads are not as popular in American society. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, "There are an estimated 105,000 'stay-at-home' dads. These are married fathers with children under fifteen years of age who are not in the workforce primarily so they can care for family members, while their wives work for a living outside the home. Stay-at-home dads care for 189,000 children."
Single parent
In the United States, since the 1960s, there has been a marked increase in the number of children living with a single parent. The 1980 United States Census reported that 19.5% were single parent households. From 1980 to 2009, the percentage of single-parent households jumped to 29.5%.
The jump was caused by an increase in births to unmarried women and by the increasing prevalence of divorces among couples. In 2010, 40.7% of births in the US were to unmarried women. In 2000, 11% of children were living with parents who had never been married, 15.6% of children lived with a divorced parent, and 1.2% lived with a parent who was widowed. The results of the 2010 United States Census showed that 27% of children live with one parent, consistent with the emerging trend noted in 2000. The most recent data of December 2011 shows approximately 13.7 million single parents in the U.S. Mississippi leads the nation with the highest percent of births to unmarried mothers with 54% in 2014, followed by Louisiana, New Mexico, Florida and South Carolina.
United States
, 58% of Americans age 18 and over were married, 6% were widowed, 10% were divorced, and 25% had never been married. Women now work mostly outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.
Incarceration of women in the United States
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, "54% of mothers in state prisons as of 2000 had had no personal visits with their children since their admission". Obstacles that inhibit contact between mothers and their children include geographical distance, lack of transportation, lack of privacy, inability to cover travel expenses, and the inappropriate environments of correctional facilities. Mothers in prison typically are unable to fulfill the role of mother due to the separation. Incarcerated mothers are restricted in their decision-making power and their ability to create a sense of home and family within the institution is limited. Most children experience multiple risks across contextual levels for there is great importance in family environments. Children of incarcerated mothers are consistent with their high risk status and it can cause their intellectual outcomes to be compromised. Statistics indicate "that a majority of parents in state and federal prisons are held over 100 miles from their prior residence; in federal prison 43% of parents are held 500 miles away from their last home, and over half of female prisoners have never had a visit from their children and very few mothers speak with their children by phone while incarcerated".
Home-ownership in the United States
This means that households with a middle-aged householder were nearly twice as likely to own a home as those with a young householder. Overall married couple families with a householder age 70 to 74 had the highest homeownership rate with 93.3% being homeowners. The lowest homeownership rate was recorded for single females under the age of twenty-five of whom only 13.6%, were homeowners. Yet, single females had an overall higher homeownership rate than single males and single mothers.
Filicide
A 1999 U.S. Department of Justice study concluded that mothers were responsible for a higher share of children killed during infancy between 1976 and 1997 in the United States, while fathers were more likely to have been responsible for the murders of children aged eight or older. Furthermore, 52-percent of the children who were killed by their mothers (maternal filicide) were female, while 57-percent of the children who were killed by their fathers (paternal filicide) were male. Parents were responsible for 61-percent of child murders under the age of five. Sometimes, there is a combination of murder and suicide in filicide cases. On average, according to FBI statistics, 450 children are murdered by their parents each year in the United States.
Nuclear family
When considered separately from couples without children, single-parent families, and unmarried couples with children, the United States nuclear families appear to constitute a minority of households – with a rising prevalence of other family arrangements. In 2000, nuclear families with the original biological parents constituted roughly 24.10% of American households, compared with 40.30% in 1970. Roughly two-thirds of all children in the United States will spend at least some time in a single-parent household. According to some sociologists, "[The nuclear family] no longer seems adequate to cover the wide diversity of household arrangements we see today." (Edwards 1991; Stacey 1996). A new term has been introduced, "postmodern family", intended to describe the great variability in family forms, including single-parent families and couples without children." Nuclear family households are now less common compared to household with couples without children, single-parent families, and unmarried couples with children.
Single parent
Cultural definition of a mother's role contributes to the preference of mother as primary caregiver. The "motherhood mandate" describes the societal expectations that good mothers should be available to their children as much as possible. In addition to their traditional protective and nurturing role, single mothers may have to play the role of family provider as well; since men are the breadwinners of the traditional family, in the absence of the child support or social benefits the mother must fulfill this role whilst also providing adequate parentage. Because of this dual role, in the United States, 80% of single mothers are employed, of which 50% are full-time workers and 30% are part-time. Many employed single mothers rely on childcare facilities to care for their children while they are away at work. Linked to the rising prevalence of single parenting is the increasing quality of health care, and there have been findings of positive developmental effects with modern childcare. It is not uncommon that the mother will become actively involved with the childcare program as to compensate for leaving her children under the care of others. Working single mothers may also rely on the help from fictive kin, who provide for the children while the mother is at her job. All of these factors contribute to a well-documented heightened likelihood for single-parent, female-headed households to experience poverty.
Gender role
In the U.S., single men are outnumbered by single women at a ratio of 100 single women to 86 single men, though never-married men over the age of 15 outnumber women by a 5:4 ratio (33.9% to 27.3%) according to the 2006 U.S. Census American Community Survey. The results are varied between age groups, with 118 single men per 100 single women in their 20s, versus 33 single men to 100 single women over 65.
Frayser, Memphis
Percentage of single-mother households (among all households):
Frayser: 28.6% Memphis: 19.8%
Maternal health
In a September 2016 ACOG/SMFM consensus, published concurrently in the journal "Obstetrics & Gynecology" and by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), they noted that while they did not yet have a "single, comprehensive definition of severe maternal morbidity" (SMM), the rate of SMM is increasing in the United States as is maternal mortality. Both are "associated with a high rate of preventability."
African Americans
In 2011, it was reported that 72% of black babies were born to unwed mothers. The poverty rate among single-parent black families was 39.5% in 2005, according to Williams, while it was 9.9% among married-couple black families. Among white families, the respective rates were 26.4% and 6% in poverty.
Collectively, African Americans are more involved in the American political process than other minority groups in the United States, indicated by the highest level of voter registration and participation in elections among these groups in 2004. African Americans collectively attain higher levels of education than immigrants to the United States. African Americans also have the highest level of Congressional representation of any minority group in the U.S.
Hispanic and Latino communities in Metro Atlanta
About 10% of female migrants are single. Women typically start working informally in childcare, and then move into domestic service or hotel work. Few women migrate alone, with most women following their husband once he has settled. Over 70% of Mexican women migrate to join their spouse; 20% come with their parents and only 7% come alone. Younger couples reunite sooner than older couples. The average gap between husband's and wife's migration is three years. Women have an average of 2.5 children, although 10% have no children.
Maternal mortality in the United States
In response to the MacDorman study, revealing the "inability, or unwillingness, of states and the federal government to track maternal deaths", ProPublica and NPR found that in 2016 alone, between 700 and 900 women died from pregnancy- and childbirth-related causes. In "Lost Mothers" they published stories of some of women who died. They ranged in age from 16 to 43.
Vermont Knolls, Los Angeles
In 2000 there were 1,533 families headed by single parents, or 33.7%, the second-highest rate for any city neighborhood, after Watts.
The Age of Extremes
Hobsbawm often uses statistics to paint a broad picture of a society at a particular time. With reference to the contemporary United States (at the time of writing) he points out, "In 1991, 58 per cent of all black families in the United States were headed by a single woman and 70 per cent of all children were born to single mothers," and "In 1991 15 per cent of what was proportionally the largest prison population in the world — 426 prisoners per 100,000 population -- were said to be mentally ill."
Women in the United States
Currently (August 2014), there are 79 female representatives in the United States, making up 18% of the U.S. House of Representatives. There are also 20 female senators in the United States, making up 20% of the U.S. Senate. There are currently 3 women in the United States presidential cabinet, including: Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Department of the Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, and Department of Commerce Secretary Penny Pritzker. As for women in positions that have the status of Cabinet-rank there are also 3 women: Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy, United States Mission to the United Nations Ambassador Samantha Power, and Small Business Administration Administrator Maria Contreras-Sweet. Two of the three Deputy Chiefs of Staff are women, Anita Decker Breckenridge and Kristie Canegallo. One of two Senior Advisors is also a woman, Valerie Jarrett. The First Lady is Melania Trump and the Second Lady is Karen Pence.
Single parent
In 2009, the overall divorce rate was around 9/1000 in the United States. It was also found that more influence came from the south, with the rates there being about 10.5/1000, as opposed to the north where it was around 7/1000. This resulted in about 1.5% (around 1 million) children living in the house of a recently divorced parent in the same year. Along with this, it has been shown that for the past 10 years or so, first marriages have a 40% chance of ending in divorce. And, for other marriages after a first divorce, the chance of another divorce increases. In 2003, a study showed that about 69% of children in American living in a household that was a different structure than the typical nuclear family. This was broken down into about 30% living with a stepparent, 23% living with a biological mother, 6% with grandparents as caregivers, 4% with a biological father, 4% with someone who was not a direct relative, and a small 1% living with a foster family.
Empty nest syndrome
In the last decade, the so-called "Boomerang Generation"—young adults who return to live with their parents—have changed the traditional empty nest dynamics. Factors such as the high unemployment rate in the United States and constrained job markets have been used to explain the surge in such individuals. Census data from 2008 showed that as many as 20 million 18-34-year-olds (34% of that age group) were living at home with their parents. A decade earlier, only fifteen percent of men and eight percent of women in that age range did so.
Women in the United States
As of 2013, the most recent year for which statistics are available, average age at first marriage in the United States is 27 for women and 29 for men.
As of 2014, women are 46.5% of the total United States workforce.
Single Mother
Single Mother or Single Mothers may also refer to:
Homeless women in the United States
Homeless families make up one third of the homeless population in America, with single-mother families being the highest sub category. Among homeless women, there is an overrepresentation of adults with sole responsibility of care of dependent children and inadequate financial resources. Women, especially single-parent family mothers, are more likely to live in poverty when they have children and have to balance earning money while raising and caring for their children. Children with a single mother are five times more likely to be in poverty than children with two parents and about three-fourths of children with a single mother are homeless. Single mothers are more likely to work part-time and to miss work in order to care for their children. Many homeless and low income women work in service industries, which offer few benefits and low wages, thus contributing greatly to their poverty. Job-based discrimination targets all women, but is present on a larger scale among minority women. On average, a larger percentage of minority women struggle to obtain and maintain jobs. The "last-hired, first-fired complex" refers to the higher level of unemployment among minorities. Thus, while all women are faced with some degree of inequity in terms of job offerings (largely as a result of being expected to care for the children), the struggles of minority women are greater. Paid employment for women also offers its own challenges because most low wage jobs don't offer affordable insurance options or child care. This leaves single mothers with the choice of accepting welfare in order to care for their children, or going to work at the risk of leaving their children on the streets.
Mama's Song
United States: 443,000
Family structure in the United States
Single-parent homes in America are increasingly common. With more children being born to unmarried couples and to couples whose marriages subsequently dissolve, more children live with just one parent. The proportion of children living with a never-married parent has grown, from 4% in 1960 to 42% in 2001. Of all single-parent families, 83% are mother–child families.
Occupational inequality
There are a number of ways that women become single mothers: divorce, outside marriage births, and partner death. Only recently did the United States see a spike in outside marriage births as well as divorce rates. In 30 years, the percentage of outside births has gone from under 20% to around 41%, with divorce rates being around 50%. Divorce rates peaked in 1980, at about 40% for first marriages; by the early 2000s the percentage had dropped to around 30%. Although the number of divorces is decreasing, they along with outside marriage births account for the growing single-mother population.
Sociology of the family
In the United States, 82.5 million women are mothers of all ages, while the national average age of first child births is 25.1 years. In 2008, 10% of births were to teenage girls, and 14% were to women ages 35 and older. In the United States, a study found that the average woman spends 5 years working and building a career before having children, and mothers working non-salary jobs began having children at age 27, compared to mothers with salary positions, who became pregnant at age 31. The study shows that the difference in age of child birth is related to education, since the longer a woman has been in school, the older she will be when she enters the workforce.
Gender role
One major concern of feminism, is that women occupy lower-ranking job positions than men, and do most of the housework. A recent (October 2009) report from the Center for American Progress, "The Shriver Report: A Woman's Nation Changes Everything" tells us that women now make up 48% of the US workforce and "mothers are breadwinners or co-breadwinners in a majority of families" (63.3%, see figure 2, page 19 of the Executive Summary of The Shriver Report).
Another recent article in "The New York Times" indicates that young women today are closing the pay gap. Luisita Lopez Torregrosa has noted, "Women are ahead of men in education (last year, 55 percent of U.S. college graduates were female). And a study shows that in most U.S. cities, single, childless women under 30 are making an average of 8 percent more money than their male counterparts, with Atlanta and Miami in the lead at 20 percent.". While this study concerned American cities, a global trend is developing, and has now been termed "the reverse gender gap."
International child abduction in Japan
In Japan, according to 2004 data from National Institute of Population and Social Security Research, mothers receive custody in roughly 80 percent of divorces involving children. This is a shift from 1970 which awarded custody to mothers only in 50 percent of cases. Similarly, in the U.S. one source estimates that fathers received sole or joint custody 26 percent of the time while mothers or someone other than the father received sole custody 74 percent of the time.
Work–family balance in the United States
Lower-class families are disproportionately made up of single mother households. According to Kathryn Edin, this is because of the lack of incentive to marry other lower class men among lower class women, and the desire to save marriage for more quality prospects. Unlike middle class women, lower class women do not have the same financial and marriage incentives to marry especially in the face of likely divorce. As a result, lower class mothers have less incentive to delay their childbearing to later years. Many of the problems shared by single parents are disproportionately felt by the lower class for these very reasons.
Women in the United States Virgin Islands
According to "Countries and Their Culture" there was a ratio of 1 in 3 households where the head of the family is a "single female parent", which is perhaps to an increasing rate of "unmarried teenage" pregnancies. In 1995, census data showed that there were 34% of "unmarried females" with at least an average of 2 children per family. Caring for infants is traditionally the responsibility of U.S. Virgin Islands women, which involves providing breastfeeding "supplemented by formula given in bottles"; and - in traditional households that hold on to folk beliefs - the mother would usually give the infant "bush tea" to induce sleep.
Maternal health
Since 2016, ProPublica and NPR investigated factors that led to the increase in maternal mortality in the United States. They reported that the "rate of life-threatening complications for new mothers in the U.S. has more than doubled in two decades due to pre-existing conditions, medical errors and unequal access to care." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, c. 4 million women who give birth in the US annually, over 50,000 a year, experience "dangerous and even life-threatening complications." Of those 700 to 900 die every year "related to pregnancy and childbirth." A "pervasive problem" is the rapidly increasing rate of "severe maternal morbidity" (SMM), which does not yet have a "single, comprehensive definition".
Mommy track
Low-earning women who have children are sacrificing about 10 to 14 percent of their total lifetime earnings. Even ten years after having children, a mother in the US in this income bracket earns wages that are about 12% lower than non-mother, low-skilled women. This group of mothers tends to experience a one-time fall in pay immediately after childbirth of about 6%, but after that initial fall the wage gap between women with children and those without does not continue to grow over time.
United States
The United States has a birth rate of 13 per 1,000, which is 5 births below the world average. Its population growth rate is positive at 0.7%, higher than that of many developed nations. In fiscal year 2016, over one million immigrants (most of whom entered through family reunification) were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new residents since the 1965 Immigration Act. China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year since the 1990s. , approximately 11.4 million residents are illegal immigrants. , 47% of all immigrants are Hispanic, 26% are Asian, 18% are white and 8% are black. The percentage of immigrants who are Asian is increasing while the percentage who are Hispanic is decreasing. The estimated number of illegal immigrants dropped to 10.7 million in 2017, down from a peak of 12.2 million in 2007. In 2017, 33,000 refugees were resettled in the United States. This was fewer than were resettled in the rest of the world for the first time in decades.
A 2017 Gallup poll concluded that 4.5% of adult Americans identified as LGBT with 5.1% of women identifying as LGBT, compared with 3.9% of men. The highest percentage came from the District of Columbia (10%), while the lowest state was North Dakota at 1.7%.
Mother
In the United States in 2012, there were 130 matricides (0.4 per million people) and 383 filicides (1.2 per million), or 1.4 incidents per day.
Work–family balance in the United States
The inability to use the income and time of two spouses has a harmful effect upon the work opportunities of lower-income mothers. Another factor is income: single-mothers tend to work lower income wage, which come with few benefits such as maternity leave, health insurance, childcare, and flexible schedules. Low-wage work oftentimes is characterized by weekly schedule changes, little flexibility, and extreme short notice for changes. As a result, lower class mothers have a greater a time crunch and more conflict in balancing their work needs with those of their children. Single mother home environments are much poorer because of nonstandard hours and schedules.
Montessori in the United States
In the 1960s, a growing homeschool movement arose in the United States, due to parental concern about the quality and nature of the government system of free public schools. By 2003, the number of homeschooling children in the United States rose to over 1 million, an increase of some 29% from 1999. In this growing context, parents have been seeking to use the Montessori Method as well. For example, Elizabeth Hainstock, a homeschooling mother in the United States, used the Montessori method with her own children in the 1960s, and wrote about her experiences and knowledge on the subject in several books to guide other parents interested in using the Montessori method at home. No reliable figure exists of the number of homeschoolers using materials or methods borrowed from Montessori.
Father
In the West, the image of the married father as the primary wage-earner is changing. The social context of fatherhood plays an important part in the well-being of men and all their children. In the United States 16% of single parents were men as of 2013.
Feminine psychology
A lot has changed throughout the years as mothers and fathers both feel the pressure of balancing both work and family life. Fifty six percent of mothers say that handling work and family life is difficult for them as they are doing more than just housework and child care. Adding to the burden is society's concept that the mother's role is to spend more time with their children. A study conducted by the Pew Research Center indicates that 42% of respondents believe that a mother who works part-time is an ideal scenario while 16% thinks that working full-time is ideal for mothers, and the rest think that mothers should stay at home.
Teenage pregnancy in the United States
More than 50% of teenage mothers do not graduate from high school. Some high schools in the United States offer a program for pregnant and parenting teens to continue their education. These are sometimes referred to as "Teen Parent Programs".
Single parent
Single mothers are likely to have mental health issues, financial hardships, live in a low income area, and receive low levels of social support. All of these factors are taken into consideration when evaluating the mental health of single mothers. The occurrence of moderate to severe mental disability was more pronounced among single mothers at 28.7% compared to partnered mothers at 15.7%. These mental disabilities include but are not limited to anxiety and depression. Financial hardships also affect the mental health of single mothers. Women, ages 15–24, were more likely to live in a low socio-economic area, have one child, and not to have completed their senior year of high school. These women reported to be in the two lowest income areas, and their mental health was much poorer than those in higher income areas.
Homeless women in the United States
Domestic violence is a major factor contributing to homelessness among the female population. Homeless women are more likely to have experienced childhood sexual abuse and/or foster care and adult partner abuse than the average female population. Nationally, twenty to fifty percent of all homeless women and children become homeless as a direct result of escaping domestic violence. In 2005, fifty percent of United States cities reported that domestic violence is a primary cause of homelessness, and in New York City specifically, it is reported that about fifty percent of their homeless population had been abused and twenty-five percent of their homeless population was homeless as a direct result of domestic violence. Domestic violence is believed to be embedded in a sense of entitlement or privilege, hierarchal beliefs (gender hierarchy), and cultural devaluation of women.
Gender inequality
The World Economic Forum measures gender equity through a series of economic, educational, and political benchmarks. It has ranked the United States as 19th (up from 31st in 2009) in terms of achieving gender equity. The US Department of Labor has indicated that in 2009, "the median weekly earnings of women who were full-time wage and salary workers was... 80 percent of men's". The Department of Justice found that in 2009, "the percentage of female victims (26%) of intimate partner violence was about 5 times that of male victims (5%)". "The United States ranks 41st in a ranking of 184 countries on maternal deaths during pregnancy and childbirth, below all other industrialized nations and a number of developing countries" and women only represent 20% of members of Congress.
Sex-selective abortion
In a 2005 study, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported sex ratio at birth in the United States from 1940 over 62 years. This statistical evidence suggested the following: For mothers having their first baby, the total sex ratio at birth was 106 overall, with some years at 107. For mothers having babies after the first, this ratio consistently decreased with each additional baby from 106 towards 103. The age of the mother affected the ratio: the overall ratio was 105 for mothers aged 25 to 35 at the time of birth; while mothers who were below the age of 15 or above 40 had babies with a sex ratio ranging between 94 and 111, and a total sex ratio of 104. This United States study also noted that American mothers of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese ethnicity had the highest sex ratio, with years as high as 114 and average sex ratio of 107 over the 62-year study period. Outside of United States, European nations with extensive birth records, such as Finland, report similar variations in birth sex ratios over a 250-year period, that is from 1751 to 1997 AD.
Women in Iceland
14% of Icelandic families have single mothers, while 2% have single fathers. 40% have both parents, while the remainder of families are childless. Among those not in formal employment, a 2010 survey found that 95% of those describing themselves as homemakers were women. The survey also found 1200 people on unpaid family leave, all of them women.
Gender inequality in the United States
The Center for American Women and Politics reports that, as of 2013, 18.3% of congressional seats are held by women and 23% of statewide elective offices are held by women; while the percentage of Congress made up of women has steadily increased, statewide elective positions held by women have decreased from their peak of 27.6% in 2001. Women also make up, as of 2013, 24.2% of state legislators in the United States. Among the one hundred largest cities in the United States, ten had female mayors as of 2013.
Parental portrayals in the media
“Mommy wars," as introduced by Nina Darnton in a June 1990 "Newsweek "article, represents the media-staged tensions between stay-at-home mothers and working mothers. Stay-at-home mothers criticize working mothers for abandoning their children and homes to build a personal career, while working mothers resent stay-at-home mothers both because of the time and attention they are able to devote to their children, and because of the notion that a mother is only "good enough" if she can devote all her time and attention to the children and household. Susan Podnieks argues that the "mommy myth", as well as the supposed battle between working and stay-at-home mothers, are circulated by news media and talk shows, sparking debates about the proper sphere of women. As a result, the general public believes that "there is a bitter war in the suburban cul-de-sacs of the United States between the complacent minivan-driving stay-at-home moms and the overachieving soon-to-be-burnout working mothers who still think they can have it all." This leads to grouping mothers into rigid and rival categories, leading them to feel insecure about their mothering, and in turn leading them to devalue other mothers in order to elevate themselves.
Single parent
Inadequate access to mental health care services is prevalent amongst impoverished women. Low-income women are less likely to receive mental health care for numerous reasons. Mental health services remain inequitable for low-income, more so, low-income single women are more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety, and other poor mental health outcomes. Researchers Copeland and Snyder (2011) addressed the barriers low-income single mothers have on receiving mental health care, "Visible barriers often include the lack of community resources, transportation, child care, convenient hours, and financial resources." Meanwhile, low-income single mothers are more likely to bring their children in for mental health treatment than themselves. Researchers Copeland and Snyder analyzed sixty-four African American mothers who brought their children in for mental health treatment. These mothers were than screened for mild, moderate, and severe depression and/or anxiety. After three months the researchers used an ethnographic interview to address whether or not the participants used mental health services that were referred to them. Results indicated that the majority of the participants did not use the referred mental health care services for reasons that included: fear of losing their children, being hospitalized and/or stigmatized by their community counterparts.
Domestic violence in the United States
According to the authors of "Housing Problems and Domestic Violence," 38% of domestic violence victims will become homeless in their lifetime. Domestic violence is the direct cause of homelessness for over half of all homeless women in the United States.
According to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, domestic violence is the third leading cause of homelessness among families.
Feminism in the Netherlands
There is currently a great deal of debate in the Netherlands over whether women simply prefer to care for their children themselves and work reduced hours, or if higher costs are holding women back from seeking further employment. Economist, lawyer and journalist Helen Mees wrote a book exploring the issue of women's low employment rate, called "Weg met het deeltijdfeminisme" ("Away with Part-time Feminism") in 2005. She identified differences between Dutch and American culture that partially explain the discrepancy in working hours between women in the two nations. In her book, Mees discusses the American "marketization" of much of women's former household duties, such as using businesses for laundry, eating out, having groceries delivered, and other services, which are rarely available in the Netherlands. Childcare is the largest expense for two-income families in the Netherlands, and since it is customarily paid by the hour, this may provide an incentive for families to reduce childcare costs by having the mother do more child-minding and less paid employment.
Cohabitation
In 2002, 63% of women who graduate from high school were found to spend some time cohabiting, compared to only 45% of women with a four-year college degree. Cohabiting couples who have children often get married. One study found that children born of parents who cohabit are 90% more likely to end up living in households with married parents than children born to single mothers. 67% of unmarried Hispanic mothers are expected to marry, while 40% of African American mothers are expected to marry.
Parental leave
In the U.S., while the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 allows for unpaid parental leave, parents often do not utilize this eligibility to its fullest extent as it is unaffordable. As a result, some studies show that the FMLA has had a limited impact on how much leave new parents take. Though specific amounts can vary, having a child (including the cost of high-quality childcare) costs families approximately $11,000 in the first year. These high costs contribute to new mothers in the United States returning to work quicker than new mothers in European countries; approximately one-third of women in the United States return to work within three months of giving birth, compared to approximately five per cent in the UK, Germany, and Sweden, and just over half of mothers in the United States with a child under the age of one work.
Gender inequality in the United States
The United States is falling behind other Western countries in the percentage of women engaged in the workforce. Researchers from the Institute for Women's Policy Research at the University of California Hastings College of Law argue that this growing gap is due to a lack of governmental, business and societal support for working women. They ranked the United States last out of 20 industrialized countries in an index that measured such programs as family leave, alternative work arrangements, part-time employment, and other means to make workplaces more flexible and family-friendly. The United States is also the only industrialized nation that does not have a paid parental leave policy mandated by law, and is one of only four countries worldwide that does not; in addition, fully paid maternity leave is only offered by around 16 percent of employers in the United States.
Marriage in the United States
African Americans have married the least of all of the predominant ethnic groups in the U.S. with a 29.9% marriage rate, but have the highest separation rate which is 4.5%. This results in a high rate of single mother households among African Americans compared with other ethnic groups (White, African American, Native Americans, Asian, Hispanic). This can lead a child to become closer to their mother, the only caregiver. Yet with only one parent furnishing resources, economic stress can result. Native Americans have the second lowest marriage rate with 37.9%. Hispanics have a 45.1% marriage rate, with a 3.5% separation rate.
Sexism
Research at Cornell University and elsewhere indicates that mothers in the United States are less likely to be hired than equally-qualified fathers and, if hired, receive a lower salary than male applicants with children. The OECD found that "a significant impact of children on women’s pay is generally found in the United Kingdom and the United States". Fathers earn $7,500 more, on average, than men without children do.
International adoption of South Korean children
The primary reason as of 2015 for the majority of surrenders within South Korea is single mothers are still publicly shamed within Korea, and the South Korean mothers who give their kids up for adoption have been mostly middle or working class women since the 1990s. The amount of money single mothers can receive within the country is 70,000 won per month, only after proving poverty versus the tax break from adopting domestically is 150,000 won per month, which is unconditional, whereas it's conditional in the case of single mothers. 33 facilities for single and divorced mothers, but the majority of them are run by orphanages and adoption agencies.
Single parent
A similar study on the mental health of single mothers attempted to answer the question, "Are there differences in the prevalence of psychiatric disorders, between married, never-married, and separated/divorced mothers?" Statistically, never married, and separated/divorced mothers had the highest regularities of drug abuse, personality disorder and PTSD. The family structure can become a trigger for mental health issues in single mothers. They are especially at risk for having higher levels of depressive symptoms.
Single parent
The prevalence of single mothers as primary caregiver is a part of traditional parenting trends between mothers and fathers. Data supports these claims, showing that in comparison to men, women are doing more than two-thirds of all child caring and in some cases one hundred percent. Of approximately 12 million single-parent homes in 2015, more than 80 percent were headed by single mothers. This disproportionate statistic has been well- documented in multiple country contexts all around the world. The United States Census Bureau found that today, one in four children under the age of 18, a total of 17.4 million are being raised without a father at all. Women all around the world have been perpetually socialized to adhere to traditional gender roles that place the majority of responsibility for childcare upon them.
Maternal mortality in the United States
After decades of inaction on the part of the U.S. Congress towards reducing the maternal mortality ratio, the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations voted on June 28, 2018 to request $50 million to prevent the pregnancy-related deaths of American women. The CDC would receive $12 million for research and data collection. They would also support individual states in counting and reviewing data on maternal deaths. The federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau would receive the remaining $38 million directed towards Healthy Start program and "life saving, evidence-based programs" at hospitals. MCHB's Healthy Start was mandated to reduce the infant mortality rate.
Parental portrayals in the media
The depiction of single mothers in the media is crucial because it impacts children's views on parenthood. This topic became especially relevant after the 1990s. Between 1986 and 1989 there was a 19% increase in pregnancy for 15- to 17-year-olds, consequently the number of single mothers increased. In a study conducted by sociologist Mary Larson, participants were asked to view several soap operas and comment on the role of the single mother. The study consisted of 163 junior and senior high-school students in a rural-suburban community in Northern Illinois in 1993. The student body was 9% minority and had an average family income of $41,000. The students in the study declared that most soap operas depict the single mother as white upper middle class with a successful job. Participants also noted that coping with a job and having a child did not seem to be a problem for the mothers. Their children were allowed to attend social events and each woman had a dominant male figure who helped with the baby on a daily basis. After viewing the shows, participants were asked to answer several questions on single mothers. Most responses indicate a skewed perception of being a single mother. Most students did not believe single mothers were more likely to live in poverty and that most babies had a dominant male presence in their lives. Other scientists have determined that men are actually more commonly portrayed as single parents in prime time television. One study revealed that men outnumber women by three to one as being single parents. Additionally, women are more frequently portrayed as married in a home setting. Whereas single men never endure the conflict of balancing their work and family life, women are depicted as struggling to balance both.
Maternity leave in the United States
Available maternity leave options may also help lower the impact of children on career advancement, or the motherhood penalty. There currently exists a "family gap" between the pay of mothers and nonmothers. In the United States prior to the passage of the FMLA, mothers typically earned 70% of men's wages while nonmothers earned 90%. These earning disparities partially stemmed from insecure employment return prospects. Women without maternity leave protection were often forced to start over with a new employer following their absence. This interrupted their career progression and burdened them with the additional task of seeking new employment. Such factors ultimately impeded equitable access to income and career opportunities. Women as a group notably experience increasing income inequality as they age illustrating the impact of motherhood on their wage prospects. However, the implementation of FMLA addressed some of these impediments through the introduction of mandatory maternity leave. Mothers now are more likely to return to their previous employer due to this increased legal protection. The policy minimizes some of the negative externalities of motherhood by maintaining women's employment options even following maternity leave. Many policy experts though suspect that the remaining gender imbalance is largely attributable to the dearth of paid leave options. Women who worked for companies that provided paid maternity leave before they gave birth are more likely to take such leave for up to 12 weeks, and more likely to return to work more quickly thereafter.
Single parent
There is some debate among experts as to what the important component of the family structure is, particularly in the US, centering on whether or not a complete family or the love and affection of the children's parents is more important. There are even some that argue that a single parent family is not even really a family. In American society, where living standard is very high, single moms and single dads are more likely to be poor, not only because they don't have help in the household, but also because they didn't have much money to begin with. With respect to this, recent public policy debates have centered on whether or not government should give aid to single parent households, which some believe will reduce poverty and improve their situation, or instead focus on wider issues like protecting employment. In addition, there is a debate on the behavioral effects of children with incarcerated parents, and how losing one or both parents to incarceration affects their academic performance and social well-being with others.
Teenage pregnancy
In other countries, such as the U.S. and Ireland, the majority of teenage mothers are not married to the father of their children. In the UK, half of all teenagers with children are lone parents, 40% are cohabitating as a couple and 10% are married. Teenage parents are frequently in a romantic relationship at the time of birth, but many adolescent fathers do not stay with the mother and this often disrupts their relationship with the child. U.S. surveys tend to under-report the prevalence of teen fatherhood.
In many cases, "teenage father" may be a misnomer. Studies by the Population Reference Bureau and the National Center for Health Statistics found that about two-thirds of births to teenage girls in the U.S. are fathered by adult men aged over 20. The Guttmacher Institute reports that over 40% of mothers aged 15–17 had sexual partners three to five years older and almost one in five had partners six or more years older. A 1990 study of births to California teens reported that the younger the mother, the greater the age gap with her male partner. In the UK 72% of jointly registered births to women aged under 20, the father is over 20, with almost 1 in 4 being over 25.
Shared earning/shared parenting marriage
In the United States in 2012, wives in dual-earner families contributed, on average, 47 percent of family earnings. A 2011 study of roughly 1,000 working fathers in United States by the Boston College Center for Work and Family found that 30% of them were splitting child care equally with the mother, and most of them aspired "to share equally in caregiving with their spouse/partner." A 2008 study by the Work and Families Institute found that 31 percent of mothers in the United States reported that her partner spent as much or more time on childcare as she did. Sociologist Stephanie Coontz has written that in 2007, 49% of married couples in the United States with minor children were reporting that each parent was spending equal time on child care.
Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
During the 1990s, poverty among single-mother and their families declined rapidly from 35.4% in 1992 to 24.7% in 2000, a new historic low. However, due to the fact that low-income mothers who left welfare are likely to be concentrated in low-wage occupations, the decline in public assistance caseloads has not translated easily into reduction in poverty. The number of poor female-headed families with children dropped from 3.8 million to 3.1 million between 1994 and 1999, a 22% decline compared to a 48% decline in caseloads. As a result, the share of working poor in the U.S. population rose, as some women left public assistance for employment but remained poor. Most studies have found that poverty is quite high among welfare leavers. Depending on the source of the data, estimates of poverty among leavers vary from about 48% to 74%.
Shawnee Mission School District
There are 93,221 households of which 29.9 percent are people living alone, 63.4 percent are families, and 6.7 percent are non-families with two or more people. 52.2 percent of households (or 82.4 percent of families) are married couples living together and 28.6 percent (or 45.1 percent) have their own children (persons under the age of 18) living with them. Of the 11.2 percent of households that have a householder with no spouse present, 44.4 percent are women living with their own children. The average household size is 2.33, and the average family size is 2.93.
Attachment parenting
In 2014, a team of researchers at the University of Mary Washington showed in a study that 23% of mothers who believe in "intensive motherhood" suffer from signs of depression; among average mothers, this applies only to 6.7%.
Labor force in the United States
According to the US Department of Labor, as of 2017 women make up 47% of the total labor force with 70% of them mothers with children under 18 years of age.
Family structure in the United States
Same-sex parents are gay, lesbian or bisexual couples that choose to raise children. Nationally, 66% of female same-sex couples and 44% of male same-sex couples live with children under eighteen years old. In the 2000 United States Census, there were 594,000 households that claimed to be headed by same-sex couples, with 72% of those having children. In July 2004, the American Psychological Association concluded that "Overall results of research suggests that the development, adjustment, and well-being of children with lesbian and gay and bisexual parents do not differ markedly from that of children with heterosexual parents."
African-American family structure
Melvin Wilson states that the single mother role in the African-American family is played by 94% of African-American single parents. According to Brown, single parent motherhood in the African-American culture is becoming more a "proactive" choice. Melvin Wilson's research shows 62% of single African-American women said this choice is in response to divorce, adoption, or just non marriage compared to 33% of single white women. In this position African-American single mothers see themselves playing the role of the mother and the father. Though the role of a single mother is similar to the role of a married mother, to take care of household responsibilities and work a full-time job, the single mothers' responsibility is greater since she does not have a second party income that a partner would provide for her family members. According to Brown, this lack of a second party income has resulted in the majority of African American children raised in single mother households having a poor upbringing.
Maternity leave in the United States
Despite some localized employees' access to maternity leave, there was growing pressure for national maternity leave legislation in the early 1990s. Many new mothers continued to be excluded from such maternity leave provisions despite growing national demand. Women now enjoyed greater employment opportunities and changing gender norms that encouraged increased labor involvement. This increased female employment extended to mothers as well who now were now more likely to engage in the workforce even if they had a young child. The labor participation rate of mothers with children under the age of 1 rose from 31% in 1976 to 54% in 1992. In spite of a high labor force participation rate, only an estimated 40% of working women had access to explicit maternity leave protection. This inadequate national coverage provoked intense protest and growing national consensus on the value of maternity leave. Ultimately, the increased salience and galvanized national support prompted the 1993 enactment of the Family and Medical Leave Act mandating maternity leave.
Work–life balance in the United States
Full-time male employees worked an average of 8.4 hours per day in 2014, compared with the 7.8 hours worked by women. But nearly 8 million more women than men worked part-time last year. 2013 and 2014 states that 57 percent of women participated in the labor force. Since 1975, the rate of working mothers has risen from 47.4 percent to 70.3 percent.
Mother
In the United States, the TFR was estimated for 2013 at 2.06 births per woman. In 2011, the average age at first birth was 25.6 and 40.7% of births were to unmarried women.
Single Parenthood Children and Academia
One parent households are a common epidemic. In the US, almost half of all children will be the product of a single parent household by the time they will reach high school. Children in single parent households are more likely to behave in disobedient activity, are less efficient in science and math, and are less likely that two parent households to graduate from high school, attend college etc.. Children in special education classes are more likely to be from that of a one parent household as well as of ethnic minority.
Heather Boushey
In response to a series of articles in the "New York Times" that claimed that highly educated women were dropping out of the labor force, Boushey published results of econometric analysis that showed that the opposite was true and that these women—along with women and workers in the economy as a whole—were merely suffering the effects of the U.S. recession and jobless recovery. Bureau of Labor Statistics economists Emy Sok and Sharon Cohany found that, in 2005, the participation rate of married mothers with preschoolers was 60%, about 4 percentage points lower than its peak in 1997 and 1998. Economist Saul Hoffman found that, between 1984 and 2004, the presence of children has had a smaller negative impact on the labor force participation of all women aged 25–44 years. This finding confirms Boushey’s report of a declining child penalty. However, this effect varies greatly by marital status: The labor force participation rate of "single" mothers aged 25–44 years increased 9 percentage points between 1993 and 2000, while the rate for single women aged 25–44 years with children aged 5 years or younger jumped a full 14 percentage points over the same period. In contrast, the labor force participation rate for "married" mothers increased 1 percentage point, and the rate for married women with children aged 5 years or younger was flat.
Responsible fatherhood
The number of children living in single-parent households has increased dramatically since the 1960s. Approximately 9% of children under 18 lived with a single parent in 1960; by 2007 this rate increased to nearly 32%. The largest growth occurred between 1970 and 1985, when the growth of single-mother families leveled off.
This shift is attributed to a variety of widely recognized social changes that occurred in American society in the 1960s and 1970s: changing sexual morals increased the prevalence of sexual activity outside of marriage and decreased the stigma surrounding out-of-wedlock births; American attitudes about marriage and divorce changed; and women made economic gains that increased their independence and ability to leave unhappy marriages.
While the social science community of the 1960s and 1970s initially regarded single-mother households as “just another alternative family form,” evidence began to surface in the late 1970s demonstrating that children raised in households where the father was absent were disadvantaged relative to other children.
Occupational inequality
Single mothers are faced with a number of challenges primarily resulting from low income. On average, single parents account for between 15 and 40% of income inequality, earning an estimated average of $32,597, less than half of what the average married couple earns. Women's incomes on average are lower than men's due to "occupational segregation". These statistics indicate that a vast number of single-parent children grow up in poverty. Studies have shown children growing up in poverty are 66% less likely to rise out of poverty. Single mothers, although working long strenuous hours at these low-paying jobs, are still unable to cope with the financial burden of childcare. With the burden of single-motherhood becoming more and more of a prevalent issue, one would think that it would begin to be taken into serious consideration by the public. However, progress toward gender integration has slowed, childcare expenses are on the rise, housing isn't getting any cheaper and health care is still expensive.
Maternal mortality ratio
The maternal mortality ratio is a key performance indicator for efforts to improve the health and safety of mothers before, during, and after childbirth per country worldwide. Often referred to as MMR, it is the annual number of female deaths per 100,000 live births from any cause related to or aggravated by pregnancy or its management (excluding accidental or incidental causes). It is not to be confused with the maternal mortality rate, which is the number of maternal deaths (direct and indirect) in a given period per 100,000 women of reproductive age during the same time period. The statistics are gathered by WHO, UNICEF, UNFPA, World Bank Group, and the United Nations Population Division. The yearly report started in 1990 and is called "Trends in Maternal Mortality". As of the 2015 data published in 2016, the countries that have seen an increase in the maternal mortality ratio since 1990 are the Bahamas, Georgia, Guyana, Jamaica, Dem. People’s Rep. Korea, Serbia, South Africa, St. Lucia, Suriname, Tonga, United States, Venezuela, RB Zimbabwe. But according to Sustainable Development Goals report 2018, the overall maternal mortality ratio has declined by 37 percent since 2002. Nearly 303,000 women died due to complications during pregnancy.
Gender role
According to the Pew Research Center, the number of stay-at-home fathers in the US nearly doubled in the period from 1989 to 2012, from 1.1 million to 2.0 million. This trend appears to be mirrored in a number of countries including the UK, Canada and Sweden. However, Pew also found that, at least in the US, public opinion in general appears to show a substantial bias toward favoring a mother as a care-taker versus a father, regardless of any shift in actual roles each plays.
Feminization of poverty
Single mother households are critical in addressing feminization of poverty and can be broadly defined as households in which there are female headships and no male headships. Single mother households are at the highest risk of poverty for women due to lack of Income and resources. There is a continuing increase of single mother households in the world, which results in higher percentages of women in poverty. Single mothers are the poorest women in society, and their children tend to be disadvantaged in comparison to their peers. Different factors can be taken into account for the rise in the number of female headship in households. When men become migrant workers, women are left to be the main caretaker of their homes. Those women who have the opportunity to work usually don't get better jobs with a furthered education. They are left with jobs that don't offer financial sustainability or benefits. Other factors such as illnesses and deaths of husbands lead to an increase in single mother households in developing countries.
Maternal mortality in the United States
It has been shown that mothers between ages 18 and 44 who did not complete high school had a 5% increase in maternal mortality versus women who completed high school.
Domestic violence in the United States
In a 2006 Amnesty International report, "The Maze of Injustice: The Failure to Protect Indigenous Women From Sexual Violence in the USA", the data for Native women indicates high levels of sexual violence. Statistics gathered by the U.S. government reveal that Native American and Alaska Native women are more than 2.5 times more likely to be sexual assaulted than women in the United States in general; more than one in three Native women will be raped in their lifetime.The United States was one of the countries identified by a United Nations study with a high rate of domestic violence resulting in death during pregnancy.In 1992, domestic violence was the leading cause of injury for women between 15 and 44; more than rapes, muggings, and car accidents combined. The levels of domestic injury against men have not been investigated to the same extent.Women are more likely than men to be murdered by an intimate partner. Of those killed by an intimate partner, about three quarters are female and about a quarter are male. In 1999 in the United States, 1,218 women and 424 men were killed by an intimate partner, and 1,181 females and 329 males were killed by their intimate partners in 2005.
In 2007, 2,340 deaths were caused by intimate partner violence—making up 14% of all homicides. 70% of these deaths were females and 30% were males.
Maternal mortality in the United States
In the 1950s, the maternal mortality rate in the United Kingdom and the United States was the same—1 in 1000 pregnant and new mothers died. By 2018, the rate in the UK was three times lower than in the United States, due to implementing a standardized protocol. In 2010, Amnesty International published a 154-page report on maternal mortality in the United States. In 2011, the United Nations described maternal mortality as a human rights issue at the forefront of American healthcare, as the mortality rates worsened over the years. According to a 2015 WHO report, in the United States the MMR between 1990 and 2013 "more than doubled from an estimated 12 to 28 maternal deaths per 100,000 births." By 2015, the United States had a higher MMR than the "Islamic Republic of Iran, Libya and Turkey". In the 2017 NPR and ProPublica series "Lost Mothers: Maternal Mortality in the U.S." based on a six-month long collaborative investigation, they reported that the United States has the highest rate of maternal mortality than any other developed country, and it is the only country where mortality rate has been rising. The maternal mortality rate in the United States is three times higher than that in neighboring Canada and six times higher than in Scandinavia.
Stay-at-home dad
In 2008, an estimated 140,000 married fathers worked in the home as their children's primary caregivers while their wives worked outside the home to provide for the family. This number was less than the previous two years, according to the US Census Bureau. In 2007, stay-at-home dads made up approximately 2.7% of the nation's stay-at-home parents. This is triple the percentage from 1997, and has been consistently higher each year since 2005. In 2006, stay-at-home dads were caring for approximately 245,000 children; 63% of stay-at-home dads had two or more children. These statistics only account for married stay-at-home dads; there are other children being cared for by single fathers or gay couples. Also, it is difficult to ascertain how many of these stay-at-home dads have accepted the role voluntarily, and how many have been forced into it by the economic crisis of the late 2000s and early 2010s, during which a great number of mostly-male blue-collar industries suffered significant losses and many previously employed men entered periods of prolonged unemployment.
Workforce
As of 2010 in the United States, 123 million women age 16 years and over have worked in the U.S., 72 million, or 58.6 percent, were working or looking for work. Women are projected to account for 51% of the increase in total labor force growth between 2008 and 2018. As of 2010 Women make up 47% of the total U.S. labor force. 66 million women were employed in the U.S. 73% of employed women worked on full-time jobs, while the remainder 27% worked part time. The different career paths women work in were: 40.6% management, professional, and related occupations, 32% worked in sales and office occupations, 21.3% in service occupations, 5.2% in production, transportation, and material moving occupations, and 0.9% in natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations. The largest percentage of employed Asian 46.1%, white 40.6%, and black women 33.8%. Hispanic women showed their strongest attachment to service occupations at 33.2%. The unemployment rate for women was 8.6%. Among female race/ethnic groups, Asian women continue to have the lowest unemployment rate of 7.5%. For white women, it was 7.7%, Hispanic women 12.3%, and black women, 13.8 percent.
Double burden
The double burden that single mothers endure has a historical precedent, and still exists currently. Single mothers usually have higher rates of employment and children at home, and have the highest levels overall of the double burden. Women also typically have less economic resources than men, and have no partner to share the workload with them. Single mothers fall heavily under economic vulnerability. They may face job discrimination and not earn as much, so there will be further difficulties in maintaining the double burden. Single-mother families tend to hover near the poverty line, with a poverty rate that is twice as high of that for men.
Maternal death
Since 2016, ProPublica and NPR investigated factors that led to the increase in maternal mortality in the United States. They reported that the "rate of life-threatening complications for new mothers in the U.S. has more than doubled in two decades due to pre-existing conditions, medical errors and unequal access to care." According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, c. 4 million women who give birth in the US annually, over 50,000 a year, experience "dangerous and even life-threatening complications."
Lactation room
“mothers are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. labor force. Approximately 70% of employed mothers with children younger than 3 years work full time. One-third of these mothers return to work within 3 months after giving birth and two-thirds return within 6 months. Working outside the home is related to a shorter duration of breastfeeding, and intentions to work full-time are significantly associated with lower rates of breastfeeding initiation and shorter duration”.
Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative
As of May 2, 2018, the United States only had 512 hospitals that hold the Baby-Friendly designation. This translates to 24.57% of annual births occurring in a Baby-Friendly hospital. Mothers in the United States face prejudice regarding breastfeeding their children. The US Surgeon General reported in 2001 that 57% of U.S. adults believe that a woman should not be allowed to breastfeed in public places and not all states protect women from being charged with public indecency for breastfeeding in public. 
A study conducted by Bartick and Reinhold, determined that $10.5 billion US dollars could be saved if 80% of families in the United States were able to meet current recommendations for exclusive breastfeeding for the first 6 months of life, that cost-savings jumps to $13 billion saved if 90% of families comply. Lower income households are often eligible for Medicaid and WIC, by breastfeeding, these agencies have been estimated to save $478 during the first six months of the infant’s life for each infant.
Social security in Australia
A controversial decision by the Labor party in 2006 and 2013, to transfer sole parents to the lower Newstart payment, has placed sole parents well below the poverty line. Welfare groups have reported these parents, 82.3% of which are women (ABS 2011), are turning to prostitution (because of the cash in hand options), have given up their education and are sleeping in their cars. This decision was made as an incentive for parents to seek work, as 57% of primary residential mothers work and 70% of primary residential fathers work (ABS 2011). With one quarter of single parent households headed by a single parent being 896,542 families (17.7% male & 82.3% female, ABS 2011)
Single parent
In this section we will use data from U.S. Census bureau and the National Assessment of Educational Progress to evaluate how the increase in single-parent households may have affected children's educational achievements.
The percentage of children living with single parents increased substantially in the United States during the second half of the 20th century. According to Child Trends 2013, only 9% of children lived with single parents in the 1960s—a figure that increased to 28% in 2012.
The main cause of single parent families are high rates of divorce and non-marital childbearing. According to Blankenhorn 1995, Fagan 1999, Pearlstein 2011, Popenoe 2009 and Whitehead 1997 researches, single parent family is strongly correlated with school failure and problems of delinquency, drug use, teenage pregnancies, poverty, and welfare dependency in American society. Using multilevel modeling, Pong 1997 and Pong 1998 high proportions of children from single parent families perform very poorly on math and reading achievement tests in schools.
Breastfeeding promotion
Each year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention release a Breastfeeding Report Card, detailing breastfeeding rates and promotion programs nationally and in all fifty states. In 2013, 76.5% of US women had ever breastfed their children; 16.4% exclusively breastfed up to six months of age. The Healthy People 2020 target for exclusive breastfeeding at six months is 25.5%. The proportion of infants who were breastfed exclusively or non-exclusively at six months was 35% in 2000 and increased to 49% by 2010.