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How Households Are Made
About This Indicator
What Does This Chart Show?
Every household, meaning everyone sharing one home, split four ways: married couples, other families such as single parents, people living alone, and everyone else, such as roommates. From the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, yearly since 1960.
What It Says
In 1960 married couples made up about three households in four and people living alone about one in eight; by 2010 married couples were under half, and people living alone more than one in four.
Key Idea
Households are smaller than in 1960 because people marry later, live longer, and more often live alone. More, smaller households need more homes for the same number of people, and a figure counted per household, such as median household income, covers fewer people than it did then.
Source: Census Bureau. Current Population Survey Historical Tables HH-1 and HH-4; CPS ASEC public-use microdata (api.census.gov) for years after the tables' last row.
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