Modern families: U.S. Census Bureau charts trends

The U.S. Census Bureau this week released a series of statistics showing changes in households and families from 2000 to 2010.

The bureau reported:

• Interracial or interethnic opposite-sex married couple households grew by 28 percent over the decade from 7 percent in 2000 to 10 percent in 2010.

• Nationally, 10 percent of opposite-sex married couples had partners of a different race compared with 18 percent of opposite-sex unmarried partners and 21 percent of same-sex unmarried partners.

• Sixty-six percent of all households in 2010 were family households – defined as a household where “two or more people who are related by birth, marriage or adoption live together.” That number does not include same-sex households.

• The number of nonfamily households increased 16 percent, from 34 million in 2000 to 39 million in 2010, while family households increased 8 percent, from 72 million in 2000 to 78 million in 2010.

• The percentage of households containing just one person increased from 25.8 percent in 2000 to 26.7 percent in 2010. Atlanta and Washington, D.C., had the highest percentage of one-person households among places with 100,000 people or more. In both cities, 44 percent of households reported just one person.

• There was a 41 percent increase in unmarried partner households between 2000 and 2010. Opposite-sex unmarried partner households grew from 4.9 million in 2000 to 6.8 million in 2010. Same-sex unmarried partner households grew from 358,000 to 646,000 from 2000 to 2010, or from 0.3 percent of all households to 0.6 percent of all households.

• Multigenerational households – households containing three or more parent-child generations – increased from 3.9 million in 2000 to 5.1 million in 2010. Nine percent of households in Hawaii were multigenerational households, which is the highest for the nation.

• The percent of households with people 65 and older increased across the decade. In 2000, 23 percent of households included someone 65 and over, compared with 25 percent in 2010.

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