What is a dual-income family?

A dual-income family is a family that gets money from two separate incomes, such as an income from the father and mother. The number of dual-income families rose 31 percent between 1996 and 2006, and it is currently the most common type of family income style, according to Forbes magazine.

Whereas it was previously more common for families to survive off of only a single income, dual-income families made up 59 percent of families in 2012, according to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. It is becoming less common for women to perform only stay-at-home duties, and some attribute the rise of dual-income families to necessity based off of rising education and product prices, suggests Forbes.