For decades, the share of U.Due south. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied past a decline in spousal relationship rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Center report of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the world's highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

Almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 live with ane parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the world who practice so (7%). The written report, which analyzed how people'southward living arrangements differ by religion, besides constitute that U.S. children from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families are about every bit likely to live in this type of arrangement.

In comparison, 3% of children in Mainland china, 4% of children in Nigeria and 5% of children in India live in single-parent households. In neighboring Canada, the share is fifteen%.

About a quarter of U.S. children live in single-parent homes, more than in any other country

While U.S. children are more than likely than children elsewhere to live in unmarried-parent households, they're much less likely to live in extended families. In the U.Southward., 8% of children live with relatives such as aunts and grandparents, compared with 38% of children globally.

Researchers have unlike ways of categorizing single-parent households. In this written report, single-parent households accept a sole adult living with at least one biological, step or foster kid under age eighteen. Some other organizations, including the U.South Census Bureau, also include households that have grandparents, other relatives or cohabiting partners nowadays.

Economical well-being a cistron in household size

Around the globe, living in extended families is linked with lower levels of economic evolution: Financial resource stretch further and domestic chores such as childcare are more easily accomplished when shared among several adults living together.

The U.S., like other economically advanced countries, peculiarly in Europe and northern Asia, has relatively small households overall. The average person in the U.S. lives in a home of 3.iv people – which is less than the global boilerplate of 4.ix, but slightly higher than the European average of 3.i. In the U.S., Christians (3.4), the unaffiliated (3.two) and Jews (3.0) live with roughly the same number of household members.

Notwithstanding, household sizes vary by historic period – the average U.S. kid under 18 lives in a household of 4.half-dozen members, while the boilerplate adult historic period sixty or older only lives with i other person.

In early adulthood, Americans go on to live with their parents at relatively high rates. Adult child households account for 20% of Americans between the ages of 18 and 34. (Developed kid households are defined as at least one parent living with one son or daughter eighteen or older and no minor children or other family members.) Young adults in the U.S. are similar to their Canadian counterparts in this regard, and North America has a higher share of immature adults who live in this system than whatsoever other region.

U.S. differs in living arrangements for older adults

Americans besides differ from others around in the world in their living arrangements after age sixty. Older adults in the U.S. are more likely than those around the world to age alone: More than a quarter of Americans ages 60 and older live lone (27%), compared with a global boilerplate of 16%. There are but 14 countries with higher shares of older adults living solitary, and all are in Europe. They include Lithuania (41%), Kingdom of denmark (39%) and Hungary (37%).

The virtually mutual system for older U.South. adults, however, is to live as a couple without whatsoever other children or relatives. Nearly one-half of U.Southward. adults ages 60 and older live in such households (46%), compared with a global average of 31%. Conversely, older Americans are much less probable to live with a wider circle of relatives. Just six% of older U.Southward. adults live in extended-family households, compared with 38% of adults ages 60 and older globally.

Globally, 38% live in extended-family homes, but in the U.S. only 11% do

Living in smaller households later historic period 60 is often tied to national rates of economic prosperity and life expectancy. Older adults are more likely to live alone or as couples in countries where an average person can expect to alive more 70 years. In countries where lives are shorter, adults 60 and older tend to live with other family members instead. Life expectancy is ofttimes linked to other markers of prosperity inside a land, so older adults who can expect to live into their 80s also tend to live in countries where living solitary is more affordable.

And in countries where governments provide fewer retirement benefits or other safety nets, families often face greater responsibility to back up crumbling relatives. Cultural norms besides play a role, and, in many parts of the earth, it is expected that adult children will intendance for their aging parents.

Despite these many differences, U.South. household patterns are likewise similar to those in other countries in some ways, and a few of these commonalities are tied to gender.

Women ages 35 to 59 in the U.S., for example, are more likely than men in the same age grouping to live every bit single parents (ix% vs. 2%), a pattern mirrored in every region and religious group around the globe.

And women, on average, are younger than their husbands or male cohabiting partners in every country analyzed. That age gap is 2.ii years in the U.S. and in the rest of the world ranges from ii years in the Czechia to 14.five years in Republic of the gambia. Within the U.S., Jewish partners are closest in age, with only one year between them, while Christians and the unaffiliated take an equal gap (2.ii years).

Coupled with women'southward longer life expectancy, this tendency helps explain some of the differences in how older men and women in the U.Due south. live.

More than one-half of U.S. men ages sixty and older (55%) alive with a partner and no one else, while roughly four-in-ten women (39%) practise. And nigh a third of women ages 60 and older alive lone (32%), while this is true of i-in-five men in the same age group (twenty%).

Annotation: Come across full methodology.

Stephanie Kramer is a senior researcher focusing on religion at Pew Inquiry Center.