Parenting is an important job and it becomes even more important and more difficult when a parent is single and attempting to raise children on their own. Although single mothers are recognized nationally as a large group of people across the country that need, deserve and welcome the support and assistance of their communities, and they often receive many forms of both public and private assistance to help them be successful single parents. But single dads are a large part of the population too, and they are often overlooked when it comes to outside support and assistance. Single dads are also often the subject of many misconceptions when it comes to their real world experiences, difficulties, successes and failures.
There is a lot of research available on the many statistics related to single fathers today, and examining the real facts can help shed new light on the effects that father involvement and father absence can have on children. The real statistics give us a better view of some of differences and realities that both fathers and single fathers must face everyday here in the U.S. too. Examining the stats on fatherhood in the U.S. today can also help dispel some of the falsehoods surrounding the effects of Men raising children by themselves. Here is a look at some of the more important realities and statistics on fathers and father involvement in the U.S. today:
There are over 70.1 million fathers living in the nation today.
There are over 1.7 million single fathers in that total.
24.7 million fathers are in married-couple families with children younger than 18.
21 percent are single fathers are raising three or more children younger than18 in married households.
3 percent of fathers live in someone else's home.
15 percent of legally custodial single parents are men.
6 percent are legally custodial single fathers.
Over 45 percent of fathers have been divorced.
75 percent of single fathers have been legally divorced.
31 percent of fathers have never been married.
19 percent of fathers are separated.
9 percent of single fathers are separated.
5 percent of fathers are widowed.
38 percent of fathers have an annual income of $50,000 or more.
16 percent of single fathers have an annual income of $50,000 or more.