Parenthood

Overview Mothers with infant children1 in the U.S. today are more educated than they ever have been. In 2011, more than six-in-ten (66%) had at least some college education, while 34% had a high school diploma or less and just 14% lacked a high school diploma, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of […]

52.9% of women aged 15-44, or about 32.5 million, were mothers in 2010, according to the Census Bureau. The U.S. birth rate dipped in 2011 to the lowest ever recorded, led by a plunge in births to immigrant women since the onset of the Great Recession. Today’s mothers have more education than ever before, according […]

Kim Parker, associate director of the Pew Research Center's Social & Demographic Trends Project, and Wendy Wang, research associate, answer questions from readers on the Modern Parenthood survey,

The way mothers and fathers spend their time has changed dramatically in the past half century. Dads are doing more housework and child care; moms more paid work outside the home. Neither has overtaken the other in their “traditional” realms, but their roles are converging, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of long-term […]

Democratic strategist Hilary Rosen’s comment this week about Ann Romney’s lack of work experience has put the “mommy wars” back in the news. Here is a summary of surveys in recent years that explore public attitudes about issues related to women, work and motherhood.

Nearly two-thirds of the 10.2 million unauthorized adult immigrants in the United States have lived in this country for at least 10 years and nearly half are parents of minor children.

Americans are considerably more likely than other publics polled to say that parents do not put enough pressure on their children, while China is the only country in which a majority sees parents putting too much pressure on students. More than six-in-ten Americans say that parents do not put enough pressure on their children to do well in school, while about two-thirds of the Chinese public take the opposite position.

In the last 50 years, fathers have become much more involved in the day-to-day lives of the children they live with. During that same time period, though, the share of fathers living apart from their children has risen dramatically, to 27% in 2010.