For decades, the share of U.Due south. children living with a single parent has been rise, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births exterior of spousal relationship. A new Pew Enquiry Center study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.Southward. has the earth's highest rate of children living in single-parent households.

Well-nigh a quarter of U.Due south. children under the age of xviii live with i parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children effectually the earth who practise and then (7%). The study, which analyzed how people'southward living arrangements differ by faith, also found that U.S. children from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families are about equally probable to live in this type of arrangement.

In comparison, 3% of children in China, iv% of children in Nigeria and five% of children in Bharat live in single-parent households. In neighboring Canada, the share is 15%.

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 alive in extended families. In the U.South., 8% of children live with relatives such as aunts and grandparents, compared with 38% of children globally.

Researchers take different ways of categorizing single-parent households. In this report, single-parent households have a sole developed living with at to the lowest degree one biological, step or foster kid under historic period 18. Some other organizations, including the U.S Demography Bureau, also include households that have grandparents, other relatives or cohabiting partners nowadays.

Economic well-being a factor in household size

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

The U.S., similar other economically avant-garde countries, peculiarly in Europe and northern Asia, has relatively small households overall. The boilerplate person in the U.S. lives in a home of 3.iv people – which is less than the global boilerplate of 4.9, merely slightly higher than the European boilerplate of 3.1. In the U.S., Christians (iii.4), the unaffiliated (3.ii) and Jews (3.0) live with roughly the same number of household members.

Nevertheless, household sizes vary by historic period – the average U.S. child under 18 lives in a household of 4.half-dozen members, while the average adult age 60 or older only lives with one other person.

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

U.South. differs in living arrangements for older adults

Americans likewise differ from others around in the globe in their living arrangements after age 60. Older adults in the U.S. are more than likely than those around the globe to age alone: More than a quarter of Americans ages 60 and older live lonely (27%), compared with a global boilerplate of 16%. At that place are merely 14 countries with college shares of older adults living alone, and all are in Europe. They include Lithuania (41%), Denmark (39%) and Republic of hungary (37%).

The most common arrangement for older U.Southward. adults, however, is to live every bit a couple without any other children or relatives. Almost half of U.S. adults ages 60 and older live in such households (46%), compared with a global average of 31%. Conversely, older Americans are much less likely to live with a wider circle of relatives. Simply 6% of older U.Due south. adults live in extended-family households, compared with 38% of adults ages threescore and older globally.

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

Living in smaller households subsequently historic period sixty is oft 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 await to live more than 70 years. In countries where lives are shorter, adults 60 and older tend to alive with other family members instead. Life expectancy is ofttimes linked to other markers of prosperity within a country, so older adults who can expect to live into their 80s likewise tend to alive in countries where living alone is more than affordable.

And in countries where governments provide fewer retirement benefits or other safety nets, families oftentimes face greater responsibility to support crumbling relatives. Cultural norms also play a function, and, in many parts of the world, it is expected that adult children will treat their aging parents.

Despite these many differences, U.Due south. household patterns are as well like to those in other countries in some means, and a few of these commonalities are tied to gender.

Women ages 35 to 59 in the U.Southward., for instance, are more likely than men in the aforementioned historic period group to live every bit unmarried parents (9% vs. two%), a pattern mirrored in every region and religious grouping around the world.

And women, on average, are younger than their husbands or male cohabiting partners in every country analyzed. That historic period gap is 2.2 years in the U.S. and in the rest of the world ranges from ii years in the Czech republic to xiv.5 years in Gambia. Inside the U.Southward., Jewish partners are closest in age, with simply one year between them, while Christians and the unaffiliated accept an equal gap (2.two years).

Coupled with women's longer life expectancy, this tendency helps explain some of the differences in how older men and women in the U.S. alive.

More one-half of U.S. men ages 60 and older (55%) alive with a partner and no 1 else, while roughly four-in-ten women (39%) do. And near a tertiary of women ages lx and older alive alone (32%), while this is true of ane-in-v men in the aforementioned age grouping (20%).

Annotation: See total methodology.

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