Know Your Listeners: Breadwinner Moms

A record 40% of all households with children under the age of 18 include mothers who are either the sole or primary source of income for the family, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The share was just 11% in 1960.

These “breadwinner moms” are made up of two very different groups: 5.1 million (37%) are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands, and 8.6 million (63%) are single mothers.

The income gap between the two groups is quite large. The median total family income of married mothers who earn more than their husbands was nearly $80,000 in 2011, well above the national median of $57,100 for all families with children, and nearly four times the $23,000 median for families led by a single mother.

Other Key Findings

• Both groups of breadwinner mothers, married and single, have grown in size in the past five decades
• The total family income is higher when the mother, not the father, is the primary breadwinner.
• Married mothers are increasingly better educated than their husbands.
• Most people reject the idea that it is bad for a marriage if a wife out-earns her husband. Today’s single mothers are much more likely to be never married than were single mothers in the past.
• Never married mothers have a distinctive profile.

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