“Untraditional” Households On Rise

These demographic nuggets appear in a Miami Herald story about just-released census data:

Preliminary census numbers show that unmarried partners made up 6.5 million, or nearly 6 percent of U.S. households. Those figures include roughly 581,300, or a half-percent of households, composed of same-sex unmarried couples. Measured by shares, the District of Columbia ranked highest for same-sex unmarried households at 2 percent. [snip] The decreases in traditional families were seen in 42 states plus the District of Columbia, while the remaining eight – Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Arizona, Colorado, Texas, North Carolina and Georgia – saw increases. Those eight states generally have a higher number of either immigrants or Mormon residents. In contrast, non-family households made up of single people such as seniors living alone, or opposite-sex or same-sex partners without children, jumped 13 percent to roughly 38 million. Married couples with no kids, which include younger couples and older empty-nesters, rose 9 percent to more than 32 million.

Married opposite-sex couples with children now make up fewer than 20% of households, an all-time low. Cue the cries of “the end of American culture.”