For decades, the share of U.Due south. children living with a single parent has been rising, accompanied by a decline in marriage rates and a rise in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Center written 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.South. children nether the historic period of eighteen live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more than three times the share of children around the earth who exercise so (7%). The report, which analyzed how people'southward living arrangements differ past organized religion, also found that U.S. children from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families are nigh equally probable to live in this type of arrangement.

In comparison, 3% of children in China, 4% of children in Nigeria and 5% of children in India 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 probable than children elsewhere to live in single-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 means of categorizing unmarried-parent households. In this report, unmarried-parent households have a sole adult living with at least i biological, step or foster kid under age xviii. Some other organizations, including the U.S Census Agency, likewise include households that have grandparents, other relatives or cohabiting partners present.

Economic well-existence a factor in household size

Around the earth, living in extended families is linked with lower levels of economical evolution: Financial resource stretch farther and domestic chores such every bit childcare are more hands accomplished when shared amidst several adults living together.

The U.S., similar other economically advanced countries, particularly in Europe and northern Asia, has relatively small households overall. The average person in the U.Due south. lives in a dwelling of 3.4 people – which is less than the global average of 4.9, but slightly higher than the European average of 3.one. In the U.S., Christians (3.four), the unaffiliated (3.2) and Jews (3.0) alive with roughly the same number of household members.

However, household sizes vary by age – the average U.S. child under xviii lives in a household of four.6 members, while the average developed age 60 or older only lives with one other person.

In early machismo, Americans keep to live with their parents at relatively high rates. Adult child households account for xx% 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 xviii 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 Northward America has a college share of young adults who live in this arrangement than any other region.

U.S. differs in living arrangements for older adults

Americans also differ from others around in the earth in their living arrangements after age threescore. Older adults in the U.S. are more likely than those effectually the world to age alone: More than a quarter of Americans ages 60 and older alive alone (27%), compared with a global average of xvi%. In that location are only 14 countries with higher shares of older adults living lonely, and all are in Europe. They include Lithuania (41%), Denmark (39%) and Hungary (37%).

The well-nigh common arrangement for older U.Southward. adults, still, is to live as a couple without any other children or relatives. Almost half of U.S. adults ages threescore and older live in such households (46%), compared with a global boilerplate of 31%. Conversely, older Americans are much less likely to live with a wider circle of relatives. Only 6% of older U.S. adults live in extended-family households, compared with 38% of adults ages sixty and older globally.

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

Living in smaller households after age threescore is oftentimes tied to national rates of economic prosperity and life expectancy. Older adults are more likely to alive solitary or every bit couples in countries where an average person can look to alive more than 70 years. In countries where lives are shorter, adults sixty and older tend to live with other family unit members instead. Life expectancy is often linked to other markers of prosperity within a country, and then older adults who tin expect to live into their 80s also tend to live in countries where living solitary is more than affordable.

And in countries where governments provide fewer retirement benefits or other safety nets, families often face greater responsibleness to support aging relatives. Cultural norms as well play a part, and, in many parts of the globe, information technology is expected that adult children will intendance for their aging parents.

Despite these many differences, U.S. household patterns are likewise 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.S., for example, are more probable than men in the same age group to alive as single parents (9% vs. two%), a pattern mirrored in every region and religious group effectually the globe.

And women, on average, are younger than their husbands or male cohabiting partners in every land analyzed. That age gap is two.2 years in the U.S. and in the rest of the globe ranges from two years in the Czech republic to 14.5 years in The gambia. Inside the U.Due south., Jewish partners are closest in age, with simply one yr between them, while Christians and the unaffiliated have an equal gap (2.two years).

Coupled with women's longer life expectancy, this trend helps explicate some of the differences in how older men and women in the U.S. live.

More than than half of U.S. men ages 60 and older (55%) alive with a partner and no one else, while roughly iv-in-ten women (39%) do. And virtually a third of women ages 60 and older alive alone (32%), while this is true of one-in-five men in the same age group (20%).

Notation: Run into full methodology.

Stephanie Kramer is a senior researcher focusing on organized religion at Pew Research Eye.