Gretchen Livingston

In 2014, 40% of births were to unmarried mothers, a slight decline from the 41% share that had held steady since 2008. Although the single percentage point drop in 2014 was small, it was only the third one-year dip in this measure since the end of World War II.

At least one-in-five people in Japan, Germany and Italy are already aged 65 or older, and most other European countries are close behind.

For women, postgraduate education and motherhood are increasingly going hand-in-hand. Not only are highly-educated women more likely to have kids, they are also having bigger families than in the past.

The latest figures show that 66% of mothers who gave birth to their first child between 2006 and 2008 worked during pregnancy, up from 44% in the early 1960s.

More than half (54%) of mothers near the end of their childbearing years with at least a master’s degree had their first child after their 20s. In fact, one-fifth didn’t become mothers until they were at least 35. Some 28% became moms in their late 20s, and 18% had children earlier in their lives.

Just 46% of U.S. kids under 18 are living in a home with two married heterosexual parents in their first marriage, a marked change from 1960.

In 2013, 40% of new marriages in the U.S. included at least one partner who had been married before. Almost 42 million Americans have been married more than once, up from 22 million in 1980.

How common is it for new parents to put down roots in the same areas that they themselves were born? The answer, according to a new Pew Research analysis, depends on which part of the country they hail from.

For the first time in decades, the non-marital birth rate in the U.S. has been declining. It's likely that the decline occurred as a result of the economic recession of 2007-2009.