OBJECTIVES: Research has found that children increase economic hardship of female-headed households. Thus, almost every industrialized society attempts to alleviate such an adverse impact of children on household's economic conditions. However, the United States is a country that does little to address such an impact of children. We investigated the differential effects of children on income status of female-headed households in the United States in comparison to other Western industrialized countries. METHOD: To this end, we identified 5,315 female-headed households in the U.S. and five Western industrialized countries including Belgium, Canada, Finland, France, and Sweden, using data from the Luxembourg Income Study. Income status of the household was measured in two ways: (1) being in poverty, under which a household was defined as poor if it had income that was below ½ of the median income of its own country and (2) income-to-needs ratio, which was defined as the ratio of the household income to the poverty line (which was ½ of the national median income). These two variables were the dependent variables in the study. The primary independent variable was the number of children under age 18. The following were the control variables: age, education, work status of the single mother, and age of the youngest child in the household. We conducted stepwise multivariate analyses of income status of female-headed households (using OLS and logistic regression) for the pooled sample that included households from all six countries. The stepwise analyses consisted of two models: The first model was designed to net out the between-country differences in the probability of being poor and in income-to-needs ratios, with the U.S. assigned to a reference group. The second model was designed to indicate the differential effects of children on the probability of being poor and the income-to-needs ratios of female-headed households between the U.S. and the other countries, by adding the interaction terms between country and the number of children. RESULTS: (1) Female-headed households in the U.S. were significantly worse off than their counterparts in all the other countries. (2) The effects of the number of children on income status of female-headed households were significantly greater in the U.S. than in all other countries. (3) When the differential effects of number of children were controlled, the disparities in the probability of being poor and in the income-to-needs ratios between the United States and the other counties were reduced significantly. POLICY IMPLICATIONS: We conclude that the adverse effects of children on the income status of female-headed households are significantly greater in the U.S. than in other Western industrialized countries and that female-headed households in the United States are paying a significantly higher economic price for having children than their counterparts in other countries. Facing dramatic demographic changes in the United States, resulting in an increasing proportion of children reared in those households, it behooves U.S. policy makers to develop work-supportive policies and income support that is targeted to children so that female heads of households are not penalized for having children.