About 64% of U.S. households were classified as family households in 2024. This marks the third year in a row the percentage has stayed the same, a turn from the steady decline in such households marked in recent decades.
Fifty years ago, 79% of households were considered family households. The Census Bureau considers a household to be a family if at least one person in the home is related to the householder by birth, marriage or adoption.
One of the biggest changes in household formations has been the increase in single-person households. This could be attributed in part to the large baby boomer generation who are aging into the stage of life in which it is common for many to live alone after divorce or the death of a spouse, according to the Institute for Family Studies, a think-tank focused on improving family formations and child care.
The makeup of family households is also changing. The Population Reference Bureau, a private non-profit that collects statistics on the health and structure of population, cites a decline in the number of married couples with children and an increase in other family arrangements.
“Since 1960, the shares of single-parent families and other nonfamily households more than doubled,” Alicia VanOrman and Linda A. Jacobsen wrote in the bureau’s 2020 population bulletin. That trend has since continued, with more households falling into the nonfamily category and fewer households with children under 18.
For the past two years, 39% of family households had children under 18. This aligns with data from the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank, that found the U.S. fertility rate dropped to a historic low in 2023, with last year recording the highest share of women aged 25-44 never having given birth.
The share of adults under age 50 without children who say they are unlikely to ever have children also increased from 37% to 47% during this time, according to the research center.