Report: 1/3 of US Men Are Married Fathers, 10% Have Children with More than One Person

About 61.6% of men (74.7 million men) age 15 and over are fathers, and of those, 72.2 million men have a biological child, according to a new Men’s Fertility and Fatherhood: 2014 report released today by the U.S. Census Bureau. More than one in four men have a biological child under the age of 18. Of the men with biological children under age 18, four out of five live with at least some of those minor children.

The report comes from the 2014 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), which is the first Census Bureau survey to ask about the full fertility histories for both men and women. This report shows the diversity of men’s fatherhood experiences and examines the relationships between men and the children with whom they live, including their own and their partners’ children, and how those relationships are related to other aspects of men’s lives.

“For the first time, we’re able to look at the fertility of men as well as women,” said Lindsay Monte, a demographer in the Fertility and Family Statistics Branch at the Census Bureau. “When looking at the full fertility histories of men, we see a depth and complexity to the experiences of fatherhood that we have not been able to see before in our data.”

Over one-third of men are married and have biological children with their spouse. There are also 2.9 million men (2.4%) who are living with an unmarried partner and have biological children with that partner. Nearly one in ten men have children with more than one person.

“While most fathers live with at least some of their biological children, they also live with a variety of other children,” said Monte. “About 4 million men live with 5.6 million minor stepchildren or other children of an unmarried partner.”

Additionally, about 13 million men live with about 23 million other children ages 0 to 17, including grandchildren, nieces or nephews, minor siblings, and foster children. There are 29.2 million grandfathers, or roughly 24.1% of all men age 15 and over. Of the men who live with their own, or a spouse or partner’s children under age 18, about 1% also live with grandchildren.

The report also gives an in-depth look at the demographics of fatherhood.

• Of the 72.2 million fathers, 5.9 million (8.2%) have never been married.
• About 73.4% of fathers are married, 12.9% are divorced, 3.2% are widowed, and 2.3% are separated.

• About 1% of white, Asian and Hispanic men ages 15 to 19 are fathers, compared with about 3% of black men of the same age.
• Among men ages 20 to 29, 21.2% of white men, 24.9% of black men, 12.4% of Asian men, and 29.4% of Hispanic men are fathers.

• About 14% of fathers do not have a high school diploma, and roughly 12% of fathers hold a graduate or professional degree.
• Among men ages 40 to 50 years, men with a bachelor’s degree are less likely to have children than men with less than a high school diploma