Westside and Bay Area wild lifestyles and hijinx may capture tabloid headlines in print and online, but it turns out that California households aren’t as wild as those headlines portray.
According to a recent report analyzing 2010 Census data (pdf), the number of households in California grew from 11.5 million to 12.5 million from 2000 to 2010.
The average number of people per California household in 2010 was 2.90% while the average number of family members per household was 3.45%.
That’s a bit higher than the national average number of people per household (2.58%) and family members per household (3.14%).
Of those 12.5 million California households, 49.4% are husband-and-wife — 23.4% are a traditional nuclear family of Dad, Mom and their children.
Nationally, the numbers are 48.4% husband-and-wife; 20.2% Dad, Mom and kids.
Households headed by a single female made up 13.3% of all California households — 6.8% are female-headed with minor children.
On the other hand, households led by a single man made up 6.0% of all California households — and 2.8% of California households were comprised of a single man with minor children.
Households of one person made up 23.3% of all California households. In 8.1% of households, that one person was 65 years of age or older, and 8.0% were households with more than one person but unrelated or non-family.
Featured photo
Graphic comparing households by type in the 1990, 2000 and 2010 Censuses courtesy of the U.S. Census Bureau.
Here is the legend:
1990, 2000, 2010 Census, households by type, legend
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