The issue is whether one is a single parent by choice (eg. unprotected sex) or by circumstance, such as you present.

“The picture described by Katz (1975:255) of the married persons in the different age categories who became widowed between 1851 and 1861 in Hamilton, Ontario, substantiates his statement that widowhood was “a frequent experience.” One out of four women and one out of ten men between the ages of 40-49 in 1851 were widowed by 1861, and the percentages increased to 34 for women and 15 for men at ages 50-59, and 54 for women and 32 for men who were 60-69 years of age. When marriage breakup due to the death of a spouse was combined with that due to desertion (which fluctuated with economic conditions), it undoubtedly affected at least proportionately as many children as a combination of divorce, death, and desertion did in the 1970s.”

I have seen similar claims for the number of single mothers in Montreal’s working class neighbourhoods around the turn of the 20th century. If there were fewer single parents in the post-WWII era, that may have been a progress. The question is who paid for it? Women forced out of the workforce after WWII? Society’s determination to offer greater job stability to wage earners through various social and economic measures, discouraging company takeovers for the sole gain of shareholders or encouraging unions?

But now, in the USA, colleges athletic programs that resist allowing former men to compete as women will lose their federal funding.