{"id":1649,"date":"2011-09-13T14:50:44","date_gmt":"2011-09-13T18:50:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=1649"},"modified":"2011-09-13T14:50:44","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T18:50:44","slug":"in-new-hampshire-one-county-claims-highest-proportion-of-woman-headed-families","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2011\/09\/13\/in-new-hampshire-one-county-claims-highest-proportion-of-woman-headed-families\/","title":{"rendered":"In New Hampshire, One County Claims Highest Proportion Of Woman-Headed Families"},"content":{"rendered":"

Nearly one-third of New England families with children are single-parent households.\u00a0 That’s according to a map<\/a> published in Communities And Banking<\/em><\/a>, a quarterly publication released by the Boston Fed.\u00a0 Using Census data, Robert Clifford mapped out the percentage of New England households that were single families.\u00a0 He also notes with pie charts the proportion that are single mothers vs. single fathers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

zacharmstrong \/ Flickr<\/p>

2010 Census data shows that in New England, single-parent households are still primarily headed by women. <\/p><\/div>\n

Overall, New Hampshire counties appear to skew low on the single-parent family count.\u00a0 Among the major population centers, Rockingham County reports the fewest single-family households, settling below the 28 percent mark.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Hillsborough and Merrimack Counties report 28.1-32 percent single-parent homes.\u00a0 Less populated Grafton and Belknap Counties fall into the same range as Hillsborough and Merrimack.<\/p>\n

Cheshire, Sullivan, Belknap and Carroll Counties claim the next highest proportion of single-parent households, hovering between 32.1 and 34.3 percent.<\/p>\n

New Hampshire then skips the next-highest bracket altogether, with Coos County claiming the highest portion: More than 36.1 percent of families there are single-parent households.<\/p>\n

Here’s how Clifford’s analysis reads:<\/p>\n

“The U.S. Census Bureau\u2019s 2010 decennial census reports 34.7 million families
\nnationwide with children under the age of 18, of which 32.1 percent (11.2
\nmillion) were single-parent households. Of the 1.6 million New England
\nfamilies with children under age 18, nearly 30.9 percent (4.9 million) were
\nsingle-parent households. Although a high share of single-parent families may
\nbe seen in urban areas, there are similarly high concentrations in rural areas
\nof Maine, Vermont, and New Hampshire.
\nSingle-parent heads of households are mostly female, but differences exist
\nbetween urban and rural counties. Counties with the largest shares of singlefather
\nhouseholds tend to be in northern New England, with the highest in
\nVermont\u2019s Grand Isle County and Maine\u2019s Hancock and Oxford counties.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Share of Families with Children under Age 18 That Are Single-Parent Households, by County<\/h5>\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Robert Clifford \/ Federal Reserve Bank of Boston<\/p>\n

Note: \u201cFamily households\u201d consist of a householder and one or more other people related to
\nthe householder by birth, marriage, or adoption. They do not yet include same-sex married
\ncouples. The share of families with children under age 18 that are single-parent households
\nis the sum of such households that were reported as \u201cmale householders, no wife present\u201d
\nand \u201cfemale householder, no husband present\u201d in the 2010 decennial census\u2014divided by the
\nuniverse of such households.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

So what’s the economic state of single moms, grandmothers, and other women raising kids alone in Coos County?<\/p>\n

Since the US Census Bureau is still crunching 2010 numbers and working them up into usable forms, StateImpact decided to check out the most recent, analyzed data available from the Bureau.\u00a0 And that’s the 2005-2009 American Community Survey estimates<\/a>.<\/p>\n

According to the survey, among all<\/em> families with kids under 18 years old, about 14.7 percent fell below the poverty level.*\u00a0 When you only count families with very young kids–under five years old–that number shoots up to 23.9 percent.\u00a0 In other words, the Census Bureau estimated in 2009 that more than one out of seven Coos County families with kids fell below the poverty line.\u00a0 And nearly a quarter of families with kids under five lived in poverty.\u00a0 That’s compared to the statewide poverty rate of 8.1 percent for all families with kids under 18, and 10.6 percent for families with kids under five.<\/p>\n

And the county’s poverty rate numbers went up dramatically when the only provider was a woman.\u00a0 For families with kids younger than 18 years old, the poverty rate was 41.8 percent.\u00a0 And if the woman is taking care of kids under five years old, once again, the number shoots up, to 58.8 percent.<\/p>\n

*That number includes numerous permutations of the term “family,” beyond the married couple, single mother or single father set-up.\u00a0 When you count just married couples, the poverty rate is much lower, at 3.4 percent.\u00a0 The married couple rate remains low even when adding children to the equation, at 3.2 percent for families with kids under 18 years old, and 1.4 percent for families with children younger than five.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nearly one-third of New England families with children are single-parent households.\u00a0 That’s according to a map published in Communities And Banking, a quarterly publication released by the Boston Fed.\u00a0 Using Census data, Robert Clifford mapped out the percentage of New England households that were single families.\u00a0 He also notes with pie charts the proportion that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":1650,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[14],"tags":[172,536,506],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1649"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1657,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1649\/revisions\/1657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1650"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}