Single Parent Families and the Rise in Divorce!

Divorce rates are higher than they have ever been, and the number of first marriages has dropped dramatically Single parents raise 7.3 percent of children, divorced parents raise 9.1 percent, and separated or widowed parents raise 7.4 percent of children (or their spouses are). Divorce affects the lives of nearly one million children every year. The reason for this is that the death rate among married couples has decreased. Widowed-parent households are at an all-time low, while the number of single women is on the rise. Because of the rising number of divorces in the United States today, children are growing up in stepfamilies or with single mothers who have been divorced and are no longer married. A greater number of children were raised by their divorced fathers as a result of changes in the law in the 1970s. For their children, different ethnic groups have different living arrangements. Over the last two decades, the percentage of African-American children raised by single mothers has risen dramatically. For African-American children, the single-parent household is now the most common.