[GSS] - Single Fathers Versus Single Males - Income Related

Is there any source of data that you know of that would tell us the income levels of unmarried fathers relative to all unmarried males? Would you expect that the unmarried fathers are doing better or worse compared to their childless peers? Would you expect the gap to be widening or shrinking. I expect unmarried childless men (like myself) are moving up relative to unmarried (especially never married) dads, and that this is indicative (though not a smoking gun) of the ‘marriage strike’ of which you remain so skeptical.

Using the GSS, I selected respondents (R's) who were unmarried males. I recoded the number of children to either "no children" or "1 or more children." I recoded the R's income into larger chunks for readability.

I made three charts, for 1986, 1998, and 2006.


1986:

1998:

2006:

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NB: Small numbers of respondents are in the higher income brackets (e.g. 15 for over $100,000).