Household and family characteristics: March 1985.

This report summarizes some of the notable recent trends in household and family characteristics and contains detailed demographic data from the March 1985 Current Population Survey. Highlights of the topics presented in the report include: 1) the number of married-couple families has increased by 3% since 1980, versus an 18% increase for other types of families; 2) household size dropped from 2.76 persons in 1980 to an average of 2.69 persons in 1985; 3) the number of households maintained by young adults under 25 years old has declined by 17% since 1980; and 4) in 1985, about 60% of the black family groups that included children under 18 had only 1 parent present, compared with 21% for corresponding white family groups. The data are estimates based on sample surveys and are subject to sampling variability since they are not based on a complete enumeration of the population.