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The percentage of children under the age of 18 who live with two parents decreased steadily for several decades (from approximately 85% in 1970 to approximately 68% by the mid-1990s1). Beginning in the mid-1990s, this decrease leveled off and the proportion of U.S. children who live with two married parents has since remained at approximately 68 percent. Despite relatively little change over the last decade, the proportion of U.S. children who live in a single parent household has more than doubled since 1970, from approximately 12 percent to 28 percent.