42 percent of US women would consider solo parenting: Poll
An Indian mother cradles her newborn daughter in a maternity ward at a public hospital in Nawanshahr in July 2012. According to Save the Children’s “State of the World’s Mothers” 2013 report, India accounts for 30 percent of all newborn deaths.
New research out this week illustrates how women's views and their role in American society is rapidly changing.
On Thursday, an Associated Press/WE tv poll showed 42 percent of unmarried American women without children would consider having a baby "on their own without a partner."
The poll of women under 50 also found that a third of those females, or 37 percent, would also consider adopting a child on their own.
More from GlobalPost: Record 40 percent of US households have mother as primary breadwinner
While the data reflected a growing acceptance of different types of non-traditional family arrangements, it also concluded that on average about two-thirds of Americans felt single motherhood was bad for society.
About 59 percent of women, compared with 64 percent of men, had some negative views of single women having children without a partner.
The poll follows recent US Census Bureau numbers that show single motherhood is on the rise.
Census figures estimate there are about 10.3 million single mothers living with children under 18, up dramatically from 3.4 million in 1970.
Additional census data shows 36 percent of American children born last year had single moms who were either divorced, widowed and never married.
The poll comes one day after a Pew study found a record 40 percent of American households with children under the age of 18 now have a woman as the primary breadwinner. Single moms made up 63 percent of those homes.