The U.S. Has the Highest Share of Single Parenting

According to Pew Research Center, the U.S. has the highest share of single parenting in the world. In 2018, almost a quarter of U.S. children under the age of 18 lived in a household with a single parent and no other adults present other than adult children. Being a single parent predominantly affects mothers around the world. In the U.S., around 20 percent of children live with just their mother while around 5 percent live with just their father.

In 2019, 49 percent of Black children in the U.S. lived with one parent, as did 28 percent of Hispanic kids and 21 percent of white kids.

The UK has the second-highest rate of single parenting, followed by island nation Sao Tome and Principe, Russia and Denmark. The only African country in the survey with more than 15 percent of children living with single parents was Kenya. Some of the countries with the lowest rates of single parenting were Afghanistan (1 percent), Mali (1 percent) and Turkey (2 percent).

Developed countries mostly lead the world in single parenting, also due to fewer extended families living together there. Parents that were not cohabitating with a significant other but with grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins or even unrelated adults were not counted as single parents by the survey.