What Single Parent Statistics Show

A life of a single parent is not easy and yet, statistics show that the number of single parents all over the world is rapidly increasing every year. Numbers show that today, there are about 13 million of them living in the United States alone and 21 million children are raised being by them. The high numbers of statistics may be alarming but they simply reflect the reality.

About 84% of them are mothers, while 16% are fathers. Some 45% of those mothers are divorced, while about 57% of those fathers are also divorces. About 34.2% of those mothers have never been married while 20.9% of those fathers did not get married as well. Some 19% of those mothers remarried, and 20% of those fathers did too. About 1% of both single moms and dads are widowed.

Apart from those data, we can also assume that single parents are playing the role of both mother and father to their children, and raising children alone can be difficult economically. Now let's look at how these parents are doing financially by themselves.

Statistics show that 70.9% of single mothers are employed-49.8% work full-time and 29.7% work part-time. Meanwhile, 90% of single fathers are also employed-71.7% of them work full-time and the other 18.4% are part-time workers. Statistics also indicate that 21% of single mothers live in poverty with their children, and 12% of single fathers do too.

These reveal that families are at high risk for poverty compared to families with both a father and a mother working together. Even though financial aids are being provided by the government for single parents, many of them may still find it hard to provide everything that their children need.

Providing for their children's material needs is not the only responsibility of a single parent. Proper guidance and attention are very important when children are growing up. About 75% of adolescents reported to be drug dependents came from single-parent families. This shows that children in single-parent families tend to misbehave, probably because of the absence of one parent.

About 75% of teenage pregnancies also come from single-parent homes. It is unfortunate that this behavior tends to repeat the whole cycle all over again. Most single-parent families start from teenage pregnancy and now, it appears that it results to teenage pregnancy as well. This is basically the trend that has been happening for years now.

Raising a child alone is clearly harder, and this will have a few unwanted effects on the growth and development of a child, particularly in families that have more than one child. These effects will certainly influence the future of the children, so remember to always try to make them feel as loved and complete as possible.

Taking good care of the children and raising them well may be the solution to the continuous increase parents in our society. What they need is proper guidance so that they would not end up as one too. If you are a one and you know how hard it is to be one, then you certainly don't want your children to experience what you are going through, so try to guide them on the choices and decisions they make early on in their lives.

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