This paper empirically examines the effects of family income and family structure on family resource allocation behavior. The results indicate that, with everything else held constant, families with higher income allocate a greater share of their resources to normal goods than do low-income families. With family income held constant, single-parent families allocate more of their expenditure to medical services and inferior goods, and allocate much less of their resources to normal goods. This expenditure behavior suggests that single-parent families have an economically disadvantaged status compared to two-parent families. On the other hand, these single-parent families have different preferences as well. Single-father families allocate more of their resources to adult goods such as drinking and tobacco while single-mother families devote more resources to family- and/or child-oriented goods such as education.