The Numbers by ZIP: Irvine Households With Kids and Without Kids

• March 2, 2020, 6:34 am America/Los_Angeles

Most of us realize that households today can take many different forms. For example, households might include related individuals (families) living together, such as married couples with children, single parents with children, and married couples without children living in the home. However, household might also include unrelated individuals living together, such as singles living alone or with other unrelated singles.*

In spite of this, the term household is often used as a synonym for family, and family is used as a shortcut way of saying a household with children. This is true in Irvine, a city that prides itself on being family friendly. But how many Irvine households actually do contain children? The answer surprised me and might surprise you also.

Note: The source of the following numbers is UnitedStatesZipcodes. Although the site has a copyright date of 2020, Irvine’s recent development and fast changing conditions might make some of the data out-of-date. However, these numbers still give us insight into some Irvine demographics. UnitedStatesZipCodes.org lists the following as source of their data–United States Postal Service, U.S. Census Bureau, Yahoo, Google, FedEx, and UPS.

Also, the following lists of Irvine neighborhoods associated with each ZIP code are extensive but not necessarily exhaustive.

The Irvine Numbers by ZIP Code: Households with Kids and without Kids

• Households w/o Kids: 5,202 (72%)
• Households with Kids: 2,000 (28%)

Irvine Numbers are the Norm, Not Exception

These numbers make it clear that significantly more Irvine households do not contain children than do. Lest you think that this is particular to Irvine, here are some other numbers:

• In 2017, the number of Orange County households that do not include children was almost double than do: 65.1% without kids,  34.9% with kids. (Source: kidsdata–Lucile Packard Foundation)
• In 2017, the same was true for the state of California: 66.0% without kids, 34.0% with kids. (Source: kidsdata–Lucile Packard Foundation)
• Nationwide the trend is similar: “The share of adults living without children has climbed 19 points since 1967 to 71.3 percent.” (Source: United States Census Bureau, August 2017)

What does the fact that a substantial amount of Irvine households do not include children mean for Irvine? I will let you draw your own conclusions. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

Sidenote: Approximately, 50% of Irvine’s population is renters. The situation is similar for much of the rest of southern California: “The dream of homeownership is slipping away for residents in many Southland cities as renters increasingly outnumber those who own homes.” (Source: The OCR, “Renters outnumber homeowners in some Southern California cities”; February 13, 2018)

*”A household is composed of one or more people who occupy a housing unit. Not all households contain families. Under the U.S. Census Bureau definition,  family households consist of two or more individuals who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption, although they also may include other unrelated people.  Nonfamily households consist of people who live alone or who share their residence with unrelated individuals.” (Source: Population Reference Bureau, “What’s a Household? What’s a Family?”)

• Irvine demographics
• Irvine families
• Irvine household size
• Irvine households
• Irvine households with children
• Irvine households without children
• Renters vs Homeowners in Irvine
• Renters vs homeowners in southern California