Single-parent

A single parent is an uncoupled individual who shoulders most or all of the day-to-day responsibilities for raising a child or children. A mother is more often the primary caregiver in a single-parent family structure that has arisen due to death of the partner, intentional artificial insemination, divorce or unplanned pregnancy.

Historically, death of a partner was a major cause of single parenting. Single parenting can also result from the breakup or divorce of coupled parents. Custody battles, awarded by the court or rationalized in other terms, determine who the child will spend majority of their time with. In western society in general, following the separation of a heterosexual couple, a child is placed with the primary caregiver, usually the mother, while the secondary caregiver is usually the father, though the reverse does happen and joint custody is on the rise. Recent years have seen the increasing incidence and visibility of uncoupled women who choose to be single parents. When single women seek to get pregnant intentionally in order to become single mothers by choice (or "choice moms"), they often seek an anonymous or known sperm donor. Single parent adoption or fostering is also sometimes an option for single adults who want to raise a family.

The demographics of single parenting show a general increase worldwide in children living in single parent homes. Single parenting has become a norm in the United States and is a trend found in multiple other countries. The morality and advisability of single motherhood has long been debated in the US. Single American mothers live in poverty 5 times more often than married parents. (National Women's Law Center, Poverty & Income Among Women & Families, 2000-2013) The topic is less contentious in Western European countries where all families enjoy more robust state-sponsored social benefits.

Single parenthood has been common historically due to parental mortality rate (due to disease, wars and maternal mortality). Historical estimates indicate that in French, English, or Spanish villages in the 17th and 18th centuries at least one-third of children lost one of their parents during childhood; in 19th century Milan about half of all children lost at least one parent by age 20; in 19th century China almost one-third of boys had lost one parent or both by age 15.Divorce was generally rare historically (although this depends by culture and era), and divorce especially became very difficult to obtain after the fall of the Roman Empire, in Medieval Europe, due to strong involvement of ecclesiastical courts in family life (though annulment and other forms of separation were more common).

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