Stepfamily Fact Sheet

Current estimates suggest:

• Sixty percent of all remarriages eventually end in legal divorce. Untold others will experience emotional divorce and unsatisfying relationships.
• About 75% of divorced persons eventually remarry.
• About 43% of all marriages are remarriages for at least one of the adults.
• About 65% of remarriages involve children from the prior marriage and form blended families.

Information from the most recent Vital Statistics Report shows:

• Of American children under 18 years of age:
  • 52.1% live with two parents
  • 26.3% live with only their biological mother 
  • 5.4% live with only their biological father
  • 3.0% live with other relatives
  • 1.2% live with non-relatives 

There are no recent estimates on the percentage of children residing in blended families.

These statistics underestimate the number of U.S. blended families, because…

To date, government reporting of population figures indicate families in which the child resides. So if the child lives with a divorced, single parent and the other nonresident parent has remarried, the child is not included in the calculations as being a member of a blended family.

Thus, their best estimates indicate that about 25% of current blended families are actually cohabiting couples.

• They show that if only children residing in legally married blended families are included, 23% of children would be designated as living in a stepfamily.
• When children are included who live with a cohabiting parent, the figure rises dramatically.
• They suggest that 2/3rds of all women, and 37% of all children, are likely to spend some time in a stepfamily, using the more liberal definition that includes cohabiting adult couples.

Other information

• One of three Americans is now a stepparent, a stepchild, a stepsibling, or some other member of a blended family 
• More than half of Americans today have been, are now or will eventually be in one or more step situations during their lives 
• The most common stepfamilies where children reside are stepfather families or combined stepfather-stepmother families. In this latter case, his children from the prior marriage typically do not reside in the blended family
• By 2010, blended families are projected be the predominant family form in the U.S.
  

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Entering your blended family with myths instead of realities guarantees you will eventually come to the place where you begin questioning what are you doing in this marriage. Click here to learn one of those myths.