Kim Mock, the owner of Say Cheese scrapbook store in Martinez, is among Columbia County's single-mother population. She says that even though there are more and more mothers in her situation, the support services aren't growing. She said she could think of only a couple programs geared toward single moms, including one for a free oil change she got from her church, Warren Baptist. U.S. Census 2000 figures show that the number of single-mother households has increased dramatically in the past decade on the national, state and local levels. Ms. Mock said.
Burke County has the largest percentage of single-mother homes in the area.
Of the more than 3,000 homes with children younger than 18 in the county, 37.5 percent are single-mother homes. Single-mother homes there grew at a rate of about 16 percent between 1990 and 2000, census data show. In Aiken County, the percentage of single-mother households rose by less than 1 percent from 24.32 to 24.88 percent during the past decade, compared with the statewide average, which experienced a 5 percent increase in those homes during the same period. Throughout the nation and in the Augusta area, the number of households with unmarried partners living together has increased dramatically during the past decade. Calif. The growing number of less traditional households can be attributed in part to rising divorce rates, a tendency to marry later in life and an increase in the number of long-term gay relationships, he said.