A new study from the Pew Research Center has found that more women are the sole or primary breadwinners in their families. In fact, 40 percent of households with children under 18 include moms who bring home the bacon. That number is up from 11 percent in 1960. The study found that 37 percent of those moms have a higher income than their husbands, and 63 percent are single moms. The women who are married tend to be older, Caucasian and have more education than their husbands as well. Moms who out-earn their husbands have increased from 4 percent in 1960 to 15 percent in 2013, and when Mom is the primary breadwinner, the total family income tends to be higher. On the other hand, the single moms were less likely to have a college education and were more likely to be Black or Hispanic.

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The median family income in these families was found to be a mere $17,400, the lowest among families with children. Public opinion on women in the workplace has changed as well. Seventy-nine percent of Americans surveyed said women should not return to their traditional roles in the home, but 51 percent of survey respondents said children are better off with Mom in the home. Only 8 percent said the same thing about dads. Respondents were not as bothered about single moms as they were in 2007, when 71 percent of respondents thought kids born to unmarried women were a “big problem.” Just 64 percent said the same thing when surveyed in 2013.

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