A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.
These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers.
At least Pew has demonstrated the integrity to note the considerable contribution to this phenomenon that has been made by the large increase in women, many of them young, having children out of wedlock, a fact which has not been much stressed on the evening news in my part of the country.
[i]Pax et bonum[/i],
Keith Töpfer