Rural children now less likely than urban children to live in homes with married couples

Children in rural areas are now less likely to be living in married-couple families than those in urban areas, according to new data from the Census Bureau. In 1990, 76 percent of rural children lived in married couple homes; now the figure is 68 percent. Meanwhile, the urban percentage declined from 72 to 69. The numbers for suburban children dropped 5 percentage points, less than the declined for rural children.

"The poverty rate for children in married-couple families is 9 percent compared to 21 percent for those in male-headed and 43 percent for those in female-headed families," note William P. O’Hare and Allison Churilla in a Carsey Institute report from the University of New Hampshire. "Consequently, the decline in the share of rural children living in married-couple families since 2000 may help explain the 3 percentage point rise in child poverty in rural America between 2000 and 2006." (Read more)