Stay-at-Home Parents

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U.S. Census Bureau Releases First Analysis of Stay-at-Home Parents

Special Report - December 6, 2004
An estimated 5.5 million parents chose to stay at home and care for their own children in 2003, according to a new report from the U.S. Census Bureau. The report, entitled “America’s Families and Living Arrangements: 2003,” includes the Census Bureau’s first ever analysis of “stay-at-home” parents. It found that 5.4 million mothers and 98,000 dads were stay-at-home parents in 2003, with nearly 42 percent of stay-at-home moms and 28.6 percent of stay-at-home dads caring for their own children under the age of three. The majority of mothers who stayed at home (88.3 percent) in 2003 cited caring for their homes and families as their primary reason for not working outside the home, compared to only 15.6 percent of dads who stay at home. Most dads in the report cited other reasons for staying home with the kids, such as illness or disability (45 percent), not being able to find work (11 percent), attending school (9 percent) or other reasons. Approximately 27 percent of the stay-at-home moms in the study lived in households with annual family incomes under $30,000, twenty-two percent with incomes from $30,000 to $49,999, nineteen percent with incomes from $50,000 to $74,999, and 32 percent with incomes over $75,000.