Long-distance family statistics: how far apart families live

Key statistics at a glance

These are the figures most often needed by journalists, students and families trying to describe their own situation. Details and caveats follow in each section.

• 55% of US adults live within an hour’s drive of at least some extended family; 20% live near none (Pew Research Center, 2022)
• The typical American adult lives 18 miles from their mother (The New York Times, 2015)
• Over half of US grandparents have at least one grandchild living more than 200 miles away (AARP, 2018)
• There are about 65 million grandparents in the United States (AARP, 2026)
• 304 million people live outside their country of birth, nearly double the number in 1990 (United Nations, 2024)
• About 1 in 4 US children has an immigrant parent (KFF, 2024)
• 76% of grandparents say technology is a primary way they stay connected with grandchildren (AARP, 2026)
• The average US household has 2.50 people, down from 3.33 in 1960 (US Census Bureau, 2025)
• 82% of US parents who use social media have posted about their children (Pew Research Center, 2020)
• Adults’ earliest memories date to about age two and a half (Peterson, 2021)

Distance is common. Losing the everyday details is the part families can do something about.

How far people live from family

Closeness is still the norm in the United States. In a Pew Research Center survey, 55% of adults said they live within an hour’s drive of at least some extended family, including 28% who live near all or most of them. One in five, 20%, live within an hour of none.

An analysis of the Health and Retirement Study by The New York Times found that the typical American adult lives 18 miles from their mother, and only about 20% live more than a couple of hours’ drive from their parents. A study using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics found that 74.8% of adults with a living parent or adult child have their nearest one within 30 miles, while 6.8% have their nearest more than 500 miles away.

Education changes the picture. In the Pew survey, 42% of adults with a postgraduate degree lived within an hour of extended family, compared with 63% of those with a high school education or less. People who move for study and work are the ones most likely to raise children far from grandparents.

Americans also move less than they used to. The Census Bureau recorded a mover rate of 8.7% in 2022, close to the lowest on record, compared with roughly 20% a year from the late 1940s through the 1960s. Among those who did move, 26.5% gave family-related reasons.

Sources: Pew Research Center (2022). More than half of Americans live within an hour of extended family.; Bui & Miller, The New York Times (2015). The Typical American Lives Only 18 Miles From Mom.; Choi, Schoeni, Wiemers, Hotz & Seltzer (2020). Spatial Distance Between Parents and Adult Children in the United States. Journal of Marriage and Family.; US Census Bureau (2023). Why people move.; Brookings Institution (2023). Americans’ local migration reached a historic low in 2022.

Grandparents and grandchildren

AARP’s 2018 Grandparents Today survey found that over half of grandparents have at least one grandchild living more than 200 miles away. The average age of becoming a grandparent for the first time was 50.

AARP’s 2026 study estimates about 65 million grandparents in the United States: one in three adults aged 35 and over, and half of adults aged 50 and over. They have 4.9 grandchildren on average. The care they give is equivalent to 12.5 weeks of full-time work a year, and 11% currently live with a grandchild.

According to the Census Bureau, 8.0% of American children under 18 lived in a grandparent’s home in 2017 to 2021.

Ideas for staying close to grandchildren who live far away

Sources: AARP (2019). 2018 Grandparents Today National Survey.; AARP (2026). Powering Families: The Essential Role of Grandparents in Care, Connection and Support.; US Census Bureau (2024). Grandparents and Their Coresident Grandchildren: 2021.

Families are smaller and start later

The average American household had 2.50 people in 2025, down from 3.33 in 1960. One-person households made up 29% of all households in 2025, compared with 20% in 1975. About 70% of children lived with two parents in 2025, compared with about 88% in 1960.

Parents are older. The mean age of American mothers at first birth reached a record 27.5 in 2023. In the European Union it was 29.9 in 2024, with a total fertility rate of 1.34. Later parenthood means older grandparents: a child born to a 30-year-old whose own mother gave birth at 30 has a 60-year-old grandmother on day one.

One trend runs the other way. Pew found that 59.7 million people in the United States, 18% of the population, lived in multigenerational households in 2021, up from 7% in 1971. Among foreign-born Americans the share was 26%.

Sources: US Census Bureau (2025). Families and Living Arrangements, historical tables and release.; CDC National Center for Health Statistics (2025). Births: Final Data for 2023.; Eurostat (2026). Fertility statistics.; Pew Research Center (2022). The Demographics of Multigenerational Households.

Families across borders

The United Nations counted 304 million international migrants in 2024, nearly double the 154 million of 1990. That is 3.7% of the world’s population. Some of these people maintain close family ties across borders; this total does not measure how many families are separated.

In the United States, about one in four children, close to 20 million, had at least one immigrant parent in 2024. In the European Union, 14.1 million people were citizens of a different EU country from the one they lived in on 1 January 2025.

Money is the measurable trace of those ties. The World Bank estimated remittances to low- and middle-income countries at $685 billion in 2024, more than foreign direct investment and official development aid combined. India and Mexico received the most.

Sources: UN DESA (2025). International Migrant Stock 2024: Key facts and figures.; KFF (2025). Children of Immigrants: Key Facts on Health Coverage and Care.; Eurostat (2025). EU population diversity by citizenship and country of birth.; World Bank (2024). Remittance flows to low- and middle-income countries in 2024.

How families stay in touch

The telephone call is giving way to messages and video. In AARP’s 2018 survey, 46% of grandparents reached grandchildren by phone, down from 70% in 2011. In the 2026 study, 76% of grandparents said technology such as texting, video calls and photo apps is a primary way they stay connected, and half of grandparents aged 80 and over text with their grandchildren.

The devices are there. Pew reports that 78% of Americans aged 65 and over own a smartphone. In an earlier Pew survey, 81% of Americans had used video calls since the start of the pandemic.

Screens are not a full substitute. A study of more than 11,000 adults aged 50 and over found that those who saw family and friends in person at least three times a week had a 6.5% rate of depressive symptoms two years later, compared with 11.5% for those who met every few months or less. Phone and email contact did not make the same difference. The study shows an association, not proof of cause.

Sources: AARP (2019). 2018 Grandparents Today National Survey.; AARP (2026). Powering Families: The Essential Role of Grandparents in Care, Connection and Support.; Pew Research Center (2026). Internet use, smartphone ownership and digital divides in the US.; Pew Research Center (2021). The Internet and the Pandemic.; Teo et al. (2015), Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, summarised by Oregon Health & Science University.

Time together changes with age

American Time Use Survey data compiled by Our World in Data shows how sharply family time falls at adulthood. At 15, Americans spend about 4.3 hours a day in the company of family. By 25 it is about 1.6 hours, and from the mid-30s on it is about an hour. Across respondents, time with children peaks at around 4.3 hours a day near age 39 and falls below one hour by 65.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that adults in households with a child under 6 spent 2.3 hours a day on childcare as their main activity in 2025. Where the youngest child was 6 to 17, it was 47 minutes.

These are snapshots of different people at different ages, counted when they are physically together. They do not follow one family over time, and calls do not count.

Count the weekends until your child turns 18

Sources: Our World in Data. Who Americans spend their time with, by age (American Time Use Survey).; US Bureau of Labor Statistics. American Time Use Survey summary.

Photos, privacy and children

Among American parents who use social media, 82% have posted photos, videos or information about their children, according to Pew. The main reason is family: 76% of those parents said sharing easily with relatives and friends is a major reason they post.

Parents are also uneasy. In the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll in 2023, 30% of parents of children aged 0 to 4 said they avoid posting photos or videos of their child, and 63% said other parents share information that could reveal a child’s location.

Children have views too. In a Microsoft study across 25 countries, 42% of teenagers said they have a problem with their parents posting about them online.

A guide to private family photo sharing

Sources: Pew Research Center (2020). Parenting Children in the Age of Screens.; C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital National Poll on Children’s Health (2023). Sharenting.; Microsoft (2019). Teens say parents share too much about them online.

What children remember

Adults’ earliest memories date, on average, to about two and a half years old, according to a 2021 review of ten studies. This is an average across the studies, not a fixed boundary for every person.

Early memories also fade during childhood. In one study, children aged 5 to 7 could recall 63% to 72% of events they had talked about at age 3. By ages 8 and 9, they recalled about 35%. The years a parent remembers most vividly are the years a child will mostly know from photographs and stories.

Sources: Peterson (2021), Memory, summarised by ScienceDaily. What is your earliest memory? It depends.; Bauer & Larkina (2014), Memory, summarised by ScienceDaily.

Claims we could not verify

Two statistics circulate widely: that 75% of the time parents will ever spend with their children is over by age 12, and 90% by 18. We could not find a primary source for either. The time-use data above measures something different and does not support them.

A related figure, that 93% of in-person time with parents is used up by the end of high school, comes from a 2015 essay by Tim Urban and is his own illustration based on his own family. We have left these out.

About these numbers

Most figures here describe the United States, which is the focus of the family-distance surveys collected here. Surveys from different years and organisations use different definitions, so compare them with care. Where a number is an estimate or projection, we say so.

You are welcome to quote this page. Please link to the original source for any figure you use, and to this page if the collection was useful. Compiled by Everlittle in October 2026.