The average number of children in an American family has changed over the years. This is due to many different factors. Right now, the average number is .94 (in other words, less than one child per family). Some families, like the Duggars, don’t match the current average.
The average number of children in an American family is something that has changed over time. This is due to many different factors. In 1960, contraception became available for the first time. This allowed women to have some control over when they would start a family, and it also allowed them to space out the span between one birth and the next.
Over the years, less women died in childbirth, and the child mortality rate decreased. Economic factors also have an influence on whether or not a couple will chose to have a child. Right now, the average number of children per family in the United States is .94. This means that, on average, there is less than one child per married couple.
Between 1800 and 1900, the average number of children per family decreased from 7.0 to 3.5. By 1933, the average number of children per American family was 2.3. There was a slight increase in the years between 1940 and 1957, when the average number went up to 3.7. Since then, the number has been dropping.
If you do some research about your family, you might see these changes reflected in the number of children your ancestors had. In my family, for example, one of my grandmothers was one of 12 children. She grew up to have five children. My brother, the only one of my siblings to have children at this time, has only two children.
On the other hand, you have the Duggar family. They have an extremely large number of children, and have been given their own reality TV show. This shows that even though the average number of children per family in the United States today is less than one, it doesn’t mean each individual family has less than one child.
Michelle and JimBob Duggar currently have 19 children, with one on the way, which brings their total number of children to 20. That’s a lot of kids!
There are studies that show that coming from a family this large puts the children at a greater risk of certain diseases. A study in the journal “BMC Cancer”, which was done in 2011, found that a larger family size is linked to a greater risk of developing lung cancer, stomach cancer, and cancer of the nervous system.
A study done in 2008 that appeared in the journal “Respiratory Research” found that kids who come from a large family have a greater risk of snoring when they reach adulthood. They are also more likely to have recurring ear infections, and to being hospitalized for a respiratory infection in childhood. Large families, like the Duggars, are going to require extra health care, just to make sure that the children aren’t developing diseases that they are at a higher risk for, simply because they have so many siblings.
Image by Martin Pettitt on Flickr