The number of children living in ‘traditional family’ settings in the United States has plummeted, new research has found.

Defining the traditional family as one where “the children are under 18 years old, the mother stays at home while the father works and both parents are in their first marriage”, the Pew Research Centre studied US Census Bureau figures, beginning in 1960, in order to track the declining state of this family unit.

The chief reasons for the decline are the growth in the number of working mothers, and the rise of divorce and out-of-wedlock births.

Its findings show that, while 50% of children lived in a family defined as traditional in 1960, that overall figure is now just 14%. Simultaneously, the number of children living in a single-parent household has climbed from 9% to 26% today. An associated figure reveals that while births to unmarried women in 1960 were just 5%, that figure today has climbed to 40%. Children living today in co-habitation households stands at 7%.

Broken down, the figures show a broad disparity based on ethnic background, with Asian children most likely to be living within the defined traditional family, with 24% doing so. They are followed by Hispanic children, at 18%, and white children, at 15%. However, for black children, the figure dips dramatically to 4%, set against 54% who live in single-parent households.

The figures are important, Pew contends as its findings also demonstrate that “kids living in cohabiting families or single-parent families are two to three times more likely than kids in married-parent families to be living in poverty”.

The latest Pew findings can be accessed at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/12/30/its-no-longer-a-leave-it-to-beaver-world-for-american-families-but-it-wasnt-back-then-either/