Chapter 1: Children and Families in the United States

DEFINING CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD
BIRTH AND FERTILITY RATES
THE CHANGING FAMILY
LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF CHILDREN

DEFINING CHILDHOOD AND ADULTHOOD

Exactly when childhood ends and adulthood begins differs among cultures and over periods of time within cultures. People in some societies believe adulthood begins with the onset of puberty, arguing that people who are old enough to have children are also old enough to assume adult responsibilities. This stage of life is often solemnized with special celebrations. In the Jewish tradition, for example, the bar mitzvah ceremony for 13-year-old boys and the bat mitzvah ceremony for 13-year-old girls commemorates the attainment of adult responsibility for observing Jewish law.

Modern American society identifies an interim period of life between childhood and adulthood known as adolescence, during which teens reach a series of milestones as they accept increasing amounts of adult responsibility. At age 16 most Americans can be licensed to drive. At 18 most young people leave the public education system and are eligible to vote. At that time they can join the military without parental permission and are tried as adults for all crimes in all states (although some states try younger people as adults, and in serious offenses such as murder, rape, or armed robbery, juveniles are sometimes tried as adults). There are contradictions in the rights and privileges conferred, however. In many states, teens under the age of 18 can marry but cannot see X-rated movies.

In general, American society recognizes 21 as the age of full adulthood. At 21, young men and women are considered legally independent of their parents and are completely responsible for their own decisions. At that time, they are allowed to buy alcoholic beverages.

According to the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, in America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2008 (2008, http://www.childstats.gov/pdf/ac2008/ac_08.pdf), in 2007, 73.9 million children younger than the age of 18 lived in the United States, 1.5 million more than in 2000. This number is expected to increase to 80 million by 2020. However, because the country's entire population will increase, the percentage of children in the population is projected to remain fairly steady, decreasing slightly from 25% in 2007 to 24% by 2020.

BIRTH AND FERTILITY RATES

Fertility is measured in a number of ways. One such measure, called the crude birthrate, is the number of live births per 1,000 women in the population, regardless of their age, in any given year. In 2005 the crude birthrate was 14 live births per 1,000 women. (See Table 1.1.) The crude birthrate for Hispanic women (of any race) was considerably higher (23.1) than for Asian or Pacific Islander women (16.5), non-Hispanic African-American women (15.7), Native American or Alaskan Native women (14.2), and non-Hispanic white women (11.5).

Another way to measure the number of births is the fertility rate, the number of live births per 1,000 women in the population between the ages of 15 and 44 years in any given year. These are the years generally considered to be a woman's reproductive age range. During the first 10 years of the baby boom that immediately followed World War II (1939–1945), fertility rates were well over 100 births per 1,000 women. (See Table 1.1.) In contrast, the fertility rate for American women in 2005 was 66.7 births per 1,000 women, just over half the 1960 fertility rate of 118 births per 1,000 women. However, some groups in American society have much higher fertility rates than the average. In 2005 the fertility rate for Hispanic women was 99.4 births per 1,000 women; non-Hispanic African-American women, 67.2; Asian or Pacific Islander women, 66.6; Native American or Alaskan Native mothers, 59.9; and non-Hispanic white women, 58.3.

Birth Trends

According to Frederick W. Hollmann, Tammany J. Mulder, and Jeffrey E. Kallan of the U.S. Census Bureau, in Methodology and Assumptions for the Population Projections of the United States : 1999 to 2100 (January

13, 2000, http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0038.pdf), fertility rates among racial and ethnic groups are expected to differ markedly in the twenty-first century. Total fertility rate refers to the average number of children a woman will give birth to in her lifetime. The total fertility rate of white women is expected to rise slightly through the century but not to reach the population replacement rate (the fertility rate needed to keep the population stable, which is 2,100 births per 1,000 women). The total fertility rate for non-Hispanic African-American women will remain steady at about the population replacement rate. Native American and Asian or Pacific Islander total fertility rates are expected to decrease slightly but remain well above the population replacement rate through the twenty-first century. The Hispanic total fertility rate is also expected to decrease from a high of 2,920.5 births per 1,000 women over their lifetime in 1999 to 2,333.8 births per 1,000 women in 2100—a rate still well above the

population replacement rate and well above the rates of other ethnic and racial groups. As a result, the proportion of American children who are non-Hispanic white is expected to decrease from 57% in 2007 to 52.9% in 2020, and the proportion of children who are Hispanic is expected to increase from 20.9% in 2007 to 23.6% in 2020, whereas other race and thnic groups will proportionally stay about the same. (See Table 1.2.)

After 2020 Hispanic births are expected to add more people each year to the U.S. population than all other non-white racial and ethnic groups combined. The non-Hispanic white population is projected to rise from 200.9 million in 2010 to 203.1 million in 2050, an increase of 2.2 million, whereas the Hispanic population will increase by 83.1 million (due to high birthrates and continued immigration), from 49.7 million to 132.8 million. (See Table 1.3.) In 2010 non-Hispanic whites will make up 64.7% (200.9 million out of 310.2 million) of the population, whereas Hispanics will make up 16% (49.7 million out of 310.2 million). By contrast, in 2050 non-Hispanic whites are expected to make up 46.3% (203.3 million out of 439 million) of the population, whereas Hispanics will make up 30.2% (132.8 million out of 439 million).

As a result, the youth segment of the U.S. population is becoming more racially diverse. Between 1980 and 2007 the non-Hispanic white share of the under-18 population dropped from 74% to 57%. (See Table 1.2.) During this same period the non-Hispanic African-American share of this population remained stable, increasing only slightly from 15% to 15.4%. In contrast, the Asian or Pacific Islander share of the under-18 population increased from 2% in 1980 to 4.1% in 2007. The Hispanic share of the under-18 population showed the highest increase, from 9% in 1980 to 20.9% in 2007. In other words, in 2007 more than one out of every five children in the United States was of Hispanic origin.

Evidence also suggests that racial and ethnic lines became less rigid in the United States in the last two decades of the twentieth century, as people from different ethnic and racial backgrounds parented children together. In Age: 2000 (October 2001, http://www.census.gov/prod/2001pubs/c2kbr01-12.pdf), Julie Meyer of the Census Bureau notes that people who reported in the 2000 census that they came from more than one ethnic or racial background had a significantly younger median age than all single-race groups, at 22.7 years. Nearly four out of ten (41.9%) people with a mixed ethnic or racial background were under the age of 18.

The number of children under the age of 18 with a biracial background continued to increase between 2000 and 2007, from 1.8 million in 2000 to 2.2 million in 2007. (See Table 1.4.) The median age of people of two or more races was young, at 20.6 in 2007. These findings may indicate that distinctions between racial and ethnic groups in the United States will continue to blur in the twenty-first century.

THE CHANGING FAMILY

Family and Household Size

The composition of households in American society changed markedly in the twentieth century. Frank Hobbs and Nicole Stoops of the Census Bureau indicate in Demographic Trends in the 20th Century (November 2002, http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/censr-4.pdf) that in 1950 families accounted for 89.4% of all households; by 2000 this number had decreased to 68.1%. The proportion of married-couple households that included at least one child under the age of 18 had also decreased. In America's Children in Brief, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics states that in 1980, 77% of all family groups with children were married-couple households; this percentage had dropped to 67.8% by 2007.

The American family shrank in size during the twentieth century. In 1900 most households consisted of five or more people. According to the Census Bureau, in Families and Living Arrangements (July 2008, http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam.html), by 1950 two-person families became the most common family type and remained so to the end of the century. The proportion of one- and two-person households increased from 1960 to 2007, whereas the

proportion of households with three or more people steadily decreased. In addition, average household size declined from 3.14 people in 1970 to 2.56 in 2007. (See Table 1.5.) This is true partly because the population is getting older, which means that a smaller proportion of households consists of parents and their children.

Fewer “Traditional” Families

One of the more significant social changes to occur in the last decades of the twentieth century was a shift away from the traditional family structure—a married couple with their own child or children living in the home. The Census Bureau divides households into two major categories: family households (defined as groups of two or more people living together related by birth, marriage, or adoption) and nonfamily households (consisting of a person living alone or an individual living with others to whom he or she is not related). As a percentage of all households, family households declined during the period 1970 to 2003. According to the Census Bureau, in 1970, 51.5 million (81%) out of 63.4 million total households were family households. (See Table 1.6.) By 2007 only 78.4 million (68%) out of 116 million households were family households.

The rise in nonfamily households is the result of many factors, some of the most prominent being:

• People are postponing marriage until later in life and are thus living alone or with nonrelatives for a longer period
• A rising divorce rate translates into more people living alone or with nonrelatives
• A rise in the number of people who cohabit before or instead of marriage results in higher numbers of non-family households
• The oldest members of the U.S. population are living longer and often live in nonfamily households as widows/widowers or in institutional settings

Even though family households were a smaller proportion of all households in 2007 than in 1950, they were still the majority of households. The Census Bureau breaks family households into three categories: married couples with their own children, married couples without children, and other family households. This last category includes single-parent households and households made up of relatives (such as siblings) who live together or grandparents who live with grandchildren without members of the middle generation being present. Of the three categories, the “other family household” grew the most between 1970 and 2007, increasing from 11.9 million (19%) out of 63.4 million of all households in 1970 to 37.6 million (32%) out of 116 million in 2007. (See Table 1.6.) Married couples headed 44.7 million (71%) out of 63.4 million of households in 1970 but only 58.9 million (51%) out of 116 million in 2007.

One- and Two-Parent Families

Among all families with children, married two-parent families accounted for 25.9 million (87%) out of 29.6 million families in 1970 and 26.8 million (67%) out of 39.9 million families in 2007. (See Table 1.7.) Overall, most households with children are still headed by married couples. However, the decline in the percentage of children being raised in two-parent households has been the subject of much study and attention.

In 2007, 11.7 million (29%) families with children out of a total of 39.9 million were maintained by a single parent, compared to 3.8 million (13%) out of 29.6 million in 1970. (See Table 1.7.) In 2007 mothers maintained over 9.9 million families with children, whereas fathers maintained only 1.7 million; mothers headed families alone nearly six times as often as fathers did. In 1970 this figure was close to nine times as often; in 1970 there were very few single-father families. Between 2000 and 2007 the number of families headed by a single father actually shrank, whereas the number headed by a single mother continued to rise.

The proportion of families headed by a single parent increased from 1980 to 2007 in all racial and ethnic groups. (See Table 1.7.) African-American children were the least likely of all racial and ethnic groups to live in two-parent households throughout this period.

The rise in single-parent families is the result of several factors, all pointing to a change in American lifestyles and values. Among these changes is an escalating divorce rate. The Census Bureau explains in the 2007 American Community Survey (ACS; http://factfinder.census.gov/) that in 2007, 25.3 million individuals in the United States were divorced and had not remarried. This number was nearly four times the 6.5 million divorced individuals in 1975, as reported in the Census Bureau's Current Population Reports, 1975 (June 1975, http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/marr-div/p20-297/p20-297.pdf).

The rise in the number of single-parent family households can also be attributed to the dramatic rise in the number of births to unmarried women. In “Births: Final Data for 2005” (National Vital Statistics Reports, vol. 56, no. 6, December 5, 2007), Joyce A. Martin et al. of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that 36.9% of births in 2005 were to unmarried women. (See Table 1.8.) Nonmarital birthrates differed significantly by race and ethnicity. Hispanic women had the highest birthrate among unmarried mothers in 2005, at 100.3 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age. The birthrate for unmarried African-American women that year was 67.8 births per 1,000 women, and for unmarried, non-Hispanic white women it was 30.1 births per 1,000 women. The rate of births to unmarried women was highest among women in their 20s; the birthrate for unmarried women aged 20 to 24 years was 74.9 births per 1,000 women, and the rate for women aged 25 to 29 was 71.1 births per 1,000 women. Unmarried teen birthrates had fallen steadily since the 1990s and hit the lowest ever recorded rate for 15- to 19-year-olds in 2005.

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF CHILDREN

Single-Parent Families

Many children who live in single-parent households face significant challenges that can be exacerbated by racial and ethnic inequalities. According to the Federal Inter-agency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, in America's Children in Brief, the poverty rate for African-American children was 33% and for Hispanic children was 27%, but for non-Hispanic white children it was only 10%. Children who lived in minority families with a single parent were especially likely to have greatly reduced economic, educational, and social opportunities. Single parents were more likely to have a low income and less education and were more likely to be unemployed and to be renting a home or apartment or living in public housing. In 2004, 10% of children living with married parents lived below the poverty level, whereas 36.5% of children living with an unmarried mother were. (See Table 1.9.) Children living with an unmarried father also had an elevated poverty rate of 16.6%.

Table 1.10 shows the dramatic differences in the proportion of children living with single parents by race and ethnic group. In 2007 children from all backgrounds were much more likely to be living with a single mother (22.6%) than a single father (3.2%), and 67.8% lived with two married parents. Among African-Americans, however, the percent of children who lived with a single mother was much higher (49.8%), whereas only 36.8% lived with married parents.

Nontraditional Families

Many single-parent families, however, are not single adult families; some single parents maintain a household with an unmarried partner. In 1990 the Census Bureau sought to reflect changing lifestyles in the United States

by asking for the first time whether unmarried couples maintained households together. Even though in 2000 a slight majority (52%) of U.S. households were headed by married couples, a significant number of unmarried couples also maintained households together. The Census Bureau indicates in the 2007 ACS that in 2007, 6.2 million unmarried couples cohabited in the United States. Most of these couples were opposite-sex couples, but approximately 754,000 of them were same-sex couples.

A significant portion of all coupled households in 2007 contained children under the age of 18. According to the ACS, 4.8 million children lived with a partner and his or her unmarried partner. In America's Families and Living Arrangements : 2007 (July 2008, http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/hh-fam/cps2007.html), the Census Bureau finds that among opposite-sex unmarried couples, 2.5 million (39%) out of 6.4 million had at least one child with them. Among married couples, 26.8 million

(44%) out of 60.7 million had children under the age of 18 living with them. Same-sex partnered households also often contained children. According to Tavia Simmons and Martin O'Connell of the Census Bureau, in Married-Couple and Unmarried-Partner Households: 2000 (February 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-5.pdf), in 2000, the most recent year for which data are available, nearly a quarter (22.3%) of households headed by male partners had children living in them, and a third (34.3%) of households headed by female partners had children living with them. One out of 20 (5.3%) children lived with a parent and his or her unmarried partner in 2004. (See Table 1.9.)

Grandparents

Grandparents sometimes provide housing for, and sometimes reside in, the homes of their children and grandchildren. According to the Child Trends Databank (2007, http://www.childtrendsdatabank.org/tables/59_Table_2.htm), in 2006, 5.1% of children under the age of 18 lived in the homes of their grandparents, and 2% lived with their grandparents without a parent present. This percentage remained fairly steady from 1970 to 2006, varying from a low of 1.3% in 1992 to the high of 2.2% in 2005. These caretaking grandparents were responsible for most of the basic needs (food, shelter, and clothing) of one or more of the grandchildren living with them.

Living and caretaking arrangements of grandparents and grandchildren varied by race and ethnicity in 2007. The Census Bureau explains in America's Families and Living Arrangements that non-Hispanic white children were less likely to live with their grandparents than Hispanic, Asian-American, and African-American children—only 5.5% of white children lived with their grandparents, whereas 10.4% of Hispanic children, 12.2% of Asian-American children, and 14.1% of African-American children did. However, African-American children were much more likely than other groups to be living with a grandparent with no parent present. Of all children living with their grandparents in 2004, 38% of African-American children, 23% of non-Hispanic white children, 16% of Hispanic children, and 4% of Asian-American children had no parent present in the home. (See Figure 1.1.)

The homes maintained by grandparents without parents present were more likely to experience economic hardship than families with a parent present, reflecting the often limited and fixed resources of senior citizens. In Children's Living Arrangements and Characteristics: March 2002 (June 2003, http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/p20547.pdf), Jason Fields of the Census Bureau states that of all grandchildren, 18% lived below the poverty line in 2002, 23% were not covered by health insurance, and 9% received public assistance. Among children who lived with their grandparents with their parents absent, the numbers were much higher: 30% were below the poverty line, 36% were not covered by health insurance, and 17% received public assistance. These numbers suggest that children who live with their grandparents without a parent present are at an economic disadvantage; grandchildren's presence in their grandparents' home without an economic contribution from the middle generation appears to severely tax the economic resources of grandparents.

Foster Care and Adoption

There is currently no comprehensive federal registry system for adoptions, which can be arranged by government agencies, private agencies, or through private arrangements between birth mothers and adoptive parents with the assistance of lawyers. The federally funded National Center for Social Statistics collected information on all finalized adoptions from 1957 to 1975, but with the dissolution of the center, limited statistical information is now available.

With the passage of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997, there was a renewed effort to improve the data available about adoption. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through the Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System (AFCARS), now tracks adoptions arranged through the foster care system, but this represents only some of the children adopted by American families each year.

In The AFCARS Report (September 2006, http://www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/cb/stats_research/afcars/tar/report14.htm), AFCARS states that on September 30, 2006, 510,000 children were living in foster homes with foster parents. Foster parents are trained people supervised by local social service agencies who provide space in their home and care for children who have been neglected, abused, or abandoned, or whose parents have surrendered them to public

agencies because they are unable to care for them. According to the American Public Welfare Association, foster care is the most common type of substitute care, but children needing substitute care might also live in group homes, emergency shelters, child care facilities, hospitals, correctional institutions, or on their own. It is becoming more difficult to place children in foster care. The number of potential foster care families is down, due in part to the fact that women, the primary providers of foster care, are entering the paid labor force in greater numbers.

AFCARS estimates that in fiscal year 2006, 303,000 children younger than 18 years old entered foster care, with an average age of 8.1 years. A disproportionate share of children entering foster care were African-American—26% of children entering foster care were African-American, but according to the Census Bureau's National Population Estimates—Characteristics (April 30, 2008, http://www.census.gov/popest/national/asrh/), only 17% of all Americans under the age of 18 were African-American (alone or in combination) in that year. Non-Hispanic white children were underrepresented among those entering foster care—45% were non-Hispanic white children, compared to 57% of all non-Hispanic white children under the age of 18. Hispanic and Native American or Alaskan Native children were more proportionally represented—19% entering foster care were Hispanic (compared to 20% of children in the general population), and 2% were Native American or Alaskan Native (compared to 2% of children in the general population). Asian-American children were underrepresented in foster care; only 1% of children in foster care were Asian-American, compared to 5% of all children in the general population.