Mother's Day: May 13, 2012
How Many Mothers
85.4 million
Estimated number of mothers in the United States in 2009.
4.0 million
Number of women between the ages of 15 and 50 who gave birth in the past 12 months.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2008
53%
Percentage of 15- to 50-year-old women who were mothers in 2010.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010
81%
Percentage of women who had become mothers by age 40 to 44 as of 2010. In 1976, 90 percent of women in that age group had given birth.
How Many Children
The total fertility rate or number of births in 2009 per woman in Utah (based on current birth rates by age), which led the nation. At the other end of the spectrum is Vermont, with a total fertility rate of 1.6 births per woman.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
94%
The percentage of the 37.8 million mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2004, who lived with their biological children only. In addition, 3 percent lived with any stepchildren, 2 percent with any adopted children and less than 1 percent with any foster children.
Source: Living Arrangements of Children: 2004
20%
Percentage of all women age 15 to 44 who have had two children. About 47 percent had no children, 17 percent had one, 10 percent had three and about 5 percent had four or more.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010, Detailed Tables, table 1
Recent Births
4.13 million
Number of births registered in the United States in 2009. Of this number, 409,840 were to teens 15 to 19 and 7,934 to women age 45 to 54.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
Average age of women in 2008 when they gave birth for the first time, up from 25.0 years in 2006 and 2007. The mean age from 2007 to 2008 reflects, in part, the relatively large decline in births to women under age 25 compared with the small decline for women in the 25-39 age bracket.
Source: National Center for Health Statistics
55%
Percentage of mothers with a birth in 2010 who were in the labor force. This decreased from from 57 percent in 2008.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010, table 6
The percentage of mothers who had given birth in the past 12 months who had a bachelor's degree or higher. Among states, New Hampshire had the highest percentage of recent mothers in this category with 48 percent. Mothers in Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey and Maryland also had percentages higher than the national average.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2008
Percentage of women age 15 to 44 with at least a high school diploma who gave birth in the last year. For women age 30 to 44, the figure was 90 percent.Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010, Table 8
5 million
Number of stay-at-home moms in 2011 — same as in 2010 and down from 5.1 million in 2009 and 5.3 million in 2008 (the estimates for 2010 and 2009 are not statistically different). In 2011, 23 percent of married-couple family groups with children under 15 had a stay-at-home mother, up from 21 percent in 2000. In 2007, before the recession, stay-at-home mothers were found in 24 percent of married-couple family groups with children under 15.
Source: America's Families and Living Arrangements Table SHP-1
Compared with other moms, stay-at-home moms in 2007 were more likely:
•Younger (44 percent were under age 35 compared with 38 percent of mothers in the labor force).
•Hispanic (27 percent compared with 16 percent of mothers in the labor force).
•Foreign-born (34 percent compared with 19 percent of mothers in the labor force).
•Living with a child under age 5 (57 percent compared with 43 percent of mothers in the labor force).
Source: America's Families and Living Arrangements: 2007
Employed Moms (and Moms-to-Be)
55%
The proportion of mothers in 2010 with a recent birth who were in the labor force decreased slightly from 57 percent in 2008.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010
In 2008, among states with higher than average levels of new mothers who were unemployed, the highest proportions were in Alabama and Delaware (10 percent) followed by Michigan, Alaska, Arkansas, North Dakota, and South Carolina (9 percent), along with several other states in the southeast United States.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2008
Single Moms
10.0 million
The number of single mothers living with children younger than 18 in 2011, up from 3.4 million in 1970.
In 2010, of the 3.7 million women 15 to 44 years old who had a birth in the last year, 1.4 million (39 percent) were to women who were not married, who were separated, or married but with an absent spouse.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2010
In 2008, this number was 1.5 million. Of those mothers, 425,000 (28 percent) were living with a cohabiting partner.
Source: Fertility of American Women: 2008
