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Among married-couple families with children, 97.4 percent had at least one employed parent in 2025

June 22, 2026

In 2025, 32.9 million families, or nearly two-fifths of all families, included children under age 18. At least one parent was employed in 91.6 percent of these families with children, little changed from the prior year.

Chart Image
Chart Data

Employment status of parents by age of youngest child and family type, in percent, 2025 annual averages
Characteristic	With own children under 18 years	With own children 6 to 17 years, none younger	With own children under 6 years
Total families
Parent(s) employed	91.6	91.8	91.2
No parent employed	8.4	8.2	8.8
Total married-couple families
Parent(s) employed	97.4	97.2	97.8
Both parents employed	66.3	69.3	62.2
Only one parent employed	31.2	27.8	35.6
Neither parent employed	2.6	2.8	2.2
Opposite-sex married couple families
Parent(s) employed	97.4	97.2	97.8
Mother employed	71.1	75	65.8
Both parents employed	66.2	69.3	62.1
Mother employed, not father	4.8	5.6	3.7
Father employed, not mother	26.4	22.2	31.9
Neither parent employed	2.6	2.8	2.2
Families maintained by mother^[1]
Mother employed	75.6	79.7	68.1
Mother not employed	24.4	20.3	31.9
Families maintained by father^[1]
Father employed	86.6	85.3	88.6
Father not employed	13.4	14.7	11.4
^[1]Includes families with no spouse present. Note: Annual estimates for 2025 are 11-month averages that exclude October. (Data for October 2025 were not collected due to the federal government shutdown.) As a result, 2025 annual estimates are not strictly comparable with annual averages for other years.

Among married-couple families with children, 97.4 percent had at least one employed parent in 2025, and in 66.3 percent of these families both parents were employed. Among families maintained by fathers, 86.6 percent of fathers were employed, up from 84.8 percent in 2024. This was a larger share than the 75.6 percent of mothers who were employed in families maintained by mothers, little changed from the prior year. Mothers with children under 6 years old had lower rates of employment compared with mothers of older children (ages 6–17) and fathers with children of any age under 18.

These data are from the Current Population Survey. For more information, see "Employment Characteristics of Families — 2025." Parents are people with their own children, including biological, step-, or adopted children who are under age 18 and living in the household. Not included are nieces, nephews, grandchildren, other related and unrelated children, and children not living in the household.

SUGGESTED CITATION

Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, The Economics Daily, Among married-couple families with children, 97.4 percent had at least one employed parent in 2025 at https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2026/among-married-couple-families-with-children-97-4-percent-had-at-least-one-employed-parent-in-2025.htm (visited June 22, 2026).

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