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.
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.