For decades, the share of U.Due south. children living with a single parent has been ascension, accompanied past a decline in marriage rates and a ascension in births outside of marriage. A new Pew Research Eye study of 130 countries and territories shows that the U.S. has the globe's highest rate of children living in unmarried-parent households.

Most a quarter of U.S. children under the age of eighteen live with one parent and no other adults (23%), more three times the share of children around the globe who practice and so (7%). The study, which analyzed how people's living arrangements differ past religion, also found that U.S. children from Christian and religiously unaffiliated families are about equally probable to alive in this type of organization.

In comparison, three% of children in Mainland china, iv% of children in Nigeria and 5% of children in Republic of india alive 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 likely than children elsewhere to live in single-parent households, they're much less likely to live in extended families. In the U.S., viii% of children live with relatives such equally aunts and grandparents, compared with 38% of children globally.

Researchers have different ways of categorizing unmarried-parent households. In this written report, unmarried-parent households have a sole adult living with at least one biological, step or foster child under historic period eighteen. Some other organizations, including the U.S Demography Bureau, as well include households that have grandparents, other relatives or cohabiting partners present.

Economic well-being a factor in household size

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

The U.S., like other economically advanced countries, specially in Europe and northern Asia, has relatively pocket-sized households overall. The average person in the U.S. lives in a home of three.iv people – which is less than the global average of 4.9, but slightly higher than the European boilerplate of three.1. In the U.S., Christians (3.4), the unaffiliated (3.two) and Jews (3.0) live with roughly the aforementioned number of household members.

Even so, household sizes vary by age – the average U.S. kid under eighteen lives in a household of 4.half dozen members, while the average adult historic period lx or older simply lives with ane other person.

In early on adulthood, Americans continue to live with their parents at relatively high rates. Developed child households account for 20% of Americans betwixt the ages of 18 and 34. (Adult child households are divers as at least one parent living with ane son or daughter 18 or older and no small children or other family members.) Immature adults in the U.Southward. are similar to their Canadian counterparts in this regard, and North America has a college share of young adults who alive in this arrangement than any other region.

U.S. differs in living arrangements for older adults

Americans as well differ from others around in the world in their living arrangements after age 60. Older adults in the U.Southward. are more likely than those around the world to age alone: More a quarter of Americans ages 60 and older alive solitary (27%), compared with a global average of xvi%. There are merely 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 most common system for older U.S. adults, however, is to alive as a couple without whatever 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. Just vi% of older U.Due south. adults live in extended-family households, compared with 38% of adults ages lx and older globally.

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

Living in smaller households afterward historic period 60 is oftentimes 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 wait to live more than seventy years. In countries where lives are shorter, adults 60 and older tend to live with other family members instead. Life expectancy is frequently linked to other markers of prosperity within a country, then older adults who can expect to live into their 80s besides tend to live in countries where living alone is more than affordable.

And in countries where governments provide fewer retirement benefits or other prophylactic nets, families often face greater responsibility to support aging relatives. Cultural norms also play a role, and, in many parts of the world, it is expected that developed children will care for their aging parents.

Despite these many differences, U.South. household patterns are also 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.Due south., for example, are more probable than men in the same historic period group to alive equally single parents (9% vs. 2%), a blueprint mirrored in every region and religious group around the world.

And women, on average, are younger than their husbands or male cohabiting partners in every country analyzed. That age gap is 2.2 years in the U.S. and in the residue of the world ranges from 2 years in the Czechia to fourteen.v years in Gambia. Inside the U.Southward., Jewish partners are closest in age, with only one year between them, while Christians and the unaffiliated have 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.Due south. live.

More than half of U.S. men ages sixty and older (55%) live with a partner and no one else, while roughly four-in-ten women (39%) exercise. And well-nigh a 3rd of women ages lx and older live lonely (32%), while this is truthful of i-in-5 men in the same historic period group (20%).

Annotation: See full methodology.

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