Mothers and motherhood are simultaneously highly celebrated and disregarded in their contributions in and outside of the home. The United States is one of the most developed countries in the world, with interesting data on mothers.
1. The average millennial mom has 3.4 social media accounts; 74 percent check their accounts regularly.
2. The United States now has one of the highest rates of maternal deaths in the developed world.
3. Black women are 243 percent more likely to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes than white women during pregnancy.
4. The U.S. workforce is made up of 47 percent.
5. About 71% of all mothers work outside the home.
6. Mothers are the primary or sole earners for 40 percent of households with children under 18 today, compared with 11 percent in 1960.
7. 70 percent of mothers with children under 18 participate in the labor force, with over 75 percent employed full-time.
8. 5.1 million (37%) of working mothers are married mothers who have a higher income than their husbands.
9. 8.6 million (63%) of working mothers are single mothers.
10. 64 percent of U.S. are married with 24 percent rearing children as a single parent. Single motherhood by race: Black 64%; Hispanic 26%; white 17%; Asian 9%
Mother and daughter11. Tax credit is limited to $6,000 per child; however, the average cost of center-based daycare in the United States is $11,666 . For urban areas, the cost can go up to $2,000.
12. Hispanics, white evangelical Protestants and those who never attended college are more likely to say children are better off with a parent at home.
13. College-educated women are among the most likely to say children are just as well off if their parents work outside the home.
14. Stay-at-home mothers are younger, poorer and less educated than their working counterparts.
15. 34 percent of stay-at-home mothers are poor, compared with 12% of working mothers. They are also less likely to be white and more likely to be immigrants.
16. A growing share of stay-at-home mothers say they are home because they cannot find a job: 6% in 2012, versus 1% in 2000.
17. Mothers who are not working for pay spend more time, on average, on child care and housework than do working mothers, but they also have more time for leisure and sleep.
18. A growing number of U.S. mothers are turning to midwives, rather than physicians, for prenatal care, labor, and delivery.
19. Around a third of all births in the U.S. are Cesarean sections, a number far higher than the World Health Organization-recommended target of 10 to 15 percent.
20. Until the mid 1960s, most African Americans were born via midwife. “Catch a baby” is the term African-American midwife traditions used when midwives birth workers delivered babies.
