CHAPTER 2
MARITAL STATUS, FAMILY, AND LIVING ARRANGEMENTS

Regardless of their composition, families are generally regarded as a cornerstone of society. For many years, particularly when the United States was primarily an agricultural society, extended families—multiple generations living in the same household—were considered typical. As the culture became more urban and mobile, nuclear families—two parents and their children—became the American norm.

Shifts in economics, employment, moral values, and social conditions, however, have led to an increasing number of single men and women living alone, cohabitations without marriage, and single-parent families. A growing number of children, especially minorities, are being raised by only one parent or by neither parent, as is the case of those being raised by grandparents or foster parents. The role and the makeup of families, particularly minority families, have been undergoing change.

MARITAL STATUS

In March 2000 approximately 116 million Americans (age fifteen years and older) were married, up from ninety-five million in 1970 and 104.6 million in 1980. (See Table 2.1.) This figure includes both those who do and those who do not live with their spouses. However, the proportion of married people age eighteen years and over has continued to decrease. In 1970, 72 percent of this population was married, dropping to 65.5 percent in 1980. In 1998 the U.S. Bureau of the Census (which counted married couples age fifteen years and over instead of age eighteen and over as it did in previous years) reported their proportion at 56.4 percent. In March 2000 that number was 54.2 percent. The number of married African-Americans decreased from 64 percent in 1970 to 51 percent in 1980 to 34.2 percent in March 2000. Likewise, the proportion of married whites and Hispanics declined from 73 percent and 72 percent, respectively, in 1970, to 67 percent and 66 percent, respectively, in 1980 to 57 percent and 52.1 percent, respectively, in March 2000. Among Asians and Pacific Islanders (APIs), 57 percent of the population was married as of March 2000. (See Table 2.1.)

Never Married

Racial differences among never-married people are significant. Among those over age fifteen, African-Americans are far more likely than whites, Hispanics, or APIs to have never married. In March 2000, 43.5 percent of African-Americans had never been married, compared to 25.5 percent of whites, 33.2 percent of Hispanics, and 33.1 percent of APIs. (See Table 2.1.)

The proportions of men and women in their twenties and thirties who have never married have grown substantially for all races since the 1970s. Between 1970 and 2000 the proportion of never-married African-American women ages twenty to twenty-four more than doubled from 43.5 percent to 88.6 percent. The proportion that remained never-married at ages twenty-five to twenty-nine more than tripled from 19 percent to 62.9 percent, while the proportion of those who were never-married at ages thirty to thirty-four years almost quadrupled from 11 percent in 1970 to 43.6 percent in March 2000. Although the proportion of young white women who never married also rose quite sharply, only 17.8 percent of white women had never been married by ages thirty to thirty-four years, compared to 43.6 percent of same-age African-American women. The proportion of white women never married by ages thirty to thirty-four years was similar to that of Hispanic women (17.9 percent). The proportion of API women who had not married by ages thirty to thirty-four was a little higher, at 22.6 percent. (See Table 2.1.)

For both African-Americans and whites, there is a significantly higher number of women than men. Since most marriages are between same-race partners, these gender inequalities might affect the number of marriages occurring. In March 2000 there were 91.1 million white

women age fifteen years and older, compared to 86.4 million white men age fifteen years and older. Likewise, there were 14.2 million African-American women age fifteen years and older, compared to 11.7 million African-American men ages fifteen and over. The numbers are more favorable for marriage among Hispanics as well as APIs. In March 2000 there were 11.5 million Hispanic women age fifteen years and older, compared to 11.3 million Hispanic men age fifteen years and older. Likewise, there were 4.4 million API women age fifteen years and older, compared to four million API men in the same age group. (See Table 2.1.)

In 1970, 9.2 percent of both African-American men and white men and 11 percent of Hispanic men ages thirty to thirty-four years were never married. By March 2000, however, the percentage of African-American men who had

never been married had increased nearly fivefold to 46.1 percent, compared to a threefold increase to 27.8 percent for white men and 28.7 percent for Hispanic men. Approximately 29.5 percent of API men ages thirty to thirty-four years had never married. (See Table 2.1.)

Interracial Marriage

Drawing on Census data, researchers at the University of Michigan reported in 1997 that the percentage of inter-racial marriages had quadrupled between the 1940s and 1990. For example, about 8 percent of African-American men were married to a partner of a different race in 1990, compared with less than 2 percent before 1950. A further study by University of Michigan researchers David Harris and Hiromi Ono indicated that the number of interracial couples who were cohabiting without marriage had also increased significantly. However, the vast majority of marriages in the United States remain between partners of

the same race—whites marry whites, African-Americans marry African-Americans, and so on. In March 2000, 97.4 percent of married couples were members of the same race. Interracial couples consisting of one white person and one African-American made up 0.6 percent of married couples. Interracial couples consisting of one white person and one Asian or Pacific Islander made up 1.2 percent of married couples. Approximately 3.1 percent of married couples were made up of one Hispanic and one non-Hispanic. (See Table 2.2.)

MIXED-RACE CHILDREN.

Not surprisingly, the number of births of mixed-racial parentage has kept pace with increases in interracial marriage and cohabitation. The change in the question of race for Census 2000, which enabled people to identify themselves by multiple races,

makes it easier to track mixed-race Americans. According to Census 2000, 6,826,228 Americans—or 2.4 percent of the total population—identified themselves as belonging to two or more races. (See Table 2.3.)

Approximately 54.4 percent of Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders reported being of mixed race. Approximately 39.9 percent of Native Americans and Alaska Natives claimed to be multiracial. Among Asian-Americans, 13.9 percent reported being of multiracial heritage. The groups with the smallest number claiming multiracial heritage in Census 2000 were African-Americans with 4.8 percent and whites with 2.5 percent. (See Table 2.4.)

Divorced

The Bureau of the Census reported in America's Families and Living Arrangements (Washington, DC, 2000) that in March 2000, 19.9 million (9.3 percent) of all adults (age fifteen and older) who had ever been married were

divorced. This is not the proportion of all adults who had ever been divorced, but the proportion of adults who were divorced at the time of the survey. A somewhat larger pro portion of African-Americans (10.7 percent) than whites (9.3 percent) and Hispanics (7.1 percent) were divorced. Divorce for all of those groups was up sharply from 1970,

when 4.4 percent of African-Americans, 3.1 percent of whites, and 3.9 percent of Hispanics were divorced. Bucking the trend, the percentage of APIs who were divorced as of March 2000 was 4.3 percent. (See Table 2.1.)

Because men are considerably more likely than women to remarry following divorce, there are significantly higher proportions of divorced women than men. The Census Bureau reported in March 2000 that 9.5 percent of African-American males and 11.8 percent of African-American females age fifteen years and over were divorced, while 8.4 percent of white males and 10.2 percent of white females were also divorced. Among those of Hispanic origin, 5.9 percent of men and 8.3 percent of women were divorced. In the API community, 3.2 percent of men and 5.3 percent of women age fifteen years and older were divorced. (See Table 2.1.)

Widowed

In March 2000, 6.4 percent of the U.S. adult population reported being widowed. This included 9.6 percent of African-American women and 2.8 percent of African-American men age fifteen years and over, compared to 6.2 percent of Hispanic women and 1.5 percent of Hispanic men. Among APIs, 6.6 percent of women age fifteen and older were widowed, compared to 1.2 percent of men. The comparable rates for white women and white men were 10.2 and 2.5 percent, respectively. (See Table 2.1.)

TEENAGE PREGNANCY

Over the generations, a major change in American attitudes has removed much of the social stigma from unwed teenage motherhood. Unmarried women of all ages are having children openly and with a regularity that was unheard of just a few generations ago. Many women do not feel the need to marry when they become pregnant.

Many possible reasons are offered for the high rates of teenage motherhood. Among them are lack of access to birth control, lack of education, and little hope for the future, including absence of educational goals. What is certain is that the health of the babies born to teenagers, especially minorities, is often as risk. According to research conducted by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, African-American teenagers are twice as likely as white teenagers to deliver low-birth-weight babies and 1.5 times more likely to have premature babies. Both low-birth-weight and premature babies are subject to a number of serious health problems, as well as subsequent developmental problems. In general, babies born to teenage mothers of all races suffer a higher risk of low birth weight, preterm delivery, and infant mortality compared to babies born to older mothers.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics' National Vital Statistics Reports (vol. 50, no. 5, February 12,

2002), in 2000 the birthrate for non-Hispanic African-American teenagers ages fifteen to seventeen was fifty-two births per 1,000 women. This was more than three times the rate for non-Hispanic white teens—15.8 per 1,000 women. Hispanics in the same age group had the highest birthrate, at sixty births per 1,000 women. Asians and Pacific Islanders had the lowest rate, at 11.5 births per 1,000 women, while Native Americans had a birthrate of 39.6 births per 1,000 women. All of the teen birthrates were down from 1999, when the rate for ages fifteen to seventeen for African-Americans was 53.7; for whites, 17.1; for Hispanics, 61.3; for APIs, 12.3; and for Native Americans, 41.4. (See Table 2.5.)

The trend reverses among Hispanic and American Indian women eighteen to nineteen years of age, as birthrates in this age group rose from 1999 to 2000. Hispanic females ages eighteen to nineteen in 2000 had a birthrate of 143.6 births per 1,000 women, compared to 139.4 births per 1,000 women in 1999. American Indian women's birth rates in that age range went from 110.6 in 1999 to 113.1 in 2000. Among non-Hispanic African-American females ages eighteen to nineteen, the birthrate was 125.1 births per 1,000 women in 2000, down from 126.8 per 1,000 women. These groups were more than twice as likely to have a baby as non-Hispanic white women of the same age—that rate was 56.8 per 1,000 in 2000, down from 58.9 per 1,000 in 1999. API teens in the same age group had the lowest birthrates: thirty-seven births per 1,000 women in 2000, down from thirty-eight per 1,000 women in 1999. Though Native Americans ages eighteen to nineteen generally had higher birthrates than white teens, with 113.1 births per 1,000 eighteen-to nineteen-year-olds in 2000, they had lower birthrates than their non-Hispanic African-American counterparts. (See Table 2.5.)

MINORITY FAMILY STRUCTURE

African-American Families

The Bureau of the Census defines a family as two or more persons living together who are related by birth, marriage,

or adoption. A household, however, can be family or nonfamily, and is simply all persons who occupy a housing unit. Among family households, the proportion of married-couple families declined from 1970 to 2000 for both African-Americans and whites. In 1970, 89 percent of white families were married-couple families, compared to 81 percent in 2000. In 1970, 68 percent of African-American families were married-couple families; thirty years later, the rate had dropped to 47.8 percent. In 2000 there were 4.1 million black married-couple families. (See Table 2.6.)

The proportion of family households headed by females with no husband present has grown for both African-Americans and whites, from 28 percent in 1970 to 44 percent in 2000 for African-Americans, and from 9 percent to 13.9 percent for whites. In 2000, 8.4 million family households were headed by white women, and 3.8 million were headed by African-American women. (See Table 2.6.) Single mothers are frequently poorer and less educated than mothers in married-couple families.

Hispanic Families

Among Hispanic families in 2000, 67.9 percent were married-couple families, down from 69 percent in 1998. The proportion of female-headed family households was 23.4 percent in 2000. That year there were 1.8 million family households headed by Hispanic women, higher than the number of family and nonfamily households headed by Hispanic men. (See Table 2.6.) Among Hispanic subgroups, Cubans were the least likely to have never been married.

Asian and Pacific Islander Families

As with all other American families, the proportion of married families among API families has dropped—from 82 percent in 1990 to 79.6 percent in 2000. But in 2000, among the 2.5 million Asian-American family households, the proportion of married-couple family households was higher than that for any other minority race or ethnicity. (See Table 2.6.)

In addition, females with no spouse present headed only 13.2 percent of API families in 2000, far less than for African-Americans (44 percent) and Hispanics (23.4 percent), and less than whites (13.9 percent). API male householders with no spouse present accounted for 7.1 percent of all API families, a lower rate than their African-American (8.1 percent) and Hispanic (8.7 percent) counter-parts.

(See Table 2.6.) In comparison, white males with no spouse present headed only 5.1 percent of white families.

LIVING ARRANGEMENTS OF CHILDREN

Changes in the marital circumstances of adults naturally affect the living arrangements of children. High divorce rates, an increased delay in first marriages, and more out-of-wedlock births have resulted in fewer children living with two parents. In 2000, 69.1 percent of children under age eighteen were living with two parents (not necessarily both natural parents), compared to 77 percent in 1980 and 85 percent in 1970. (See Table 2.7.) The largest proportions of single-parent children were those living with a single, divorced, or widowed mother. Minority children have been particularly affected by these changes.

African-American Children

In 2000, 37.6 percent of African-American children under eighteen years old lived with both parents, 49 percent lived with their mothers only, and 4.2 percent lived

with their fathers only. (See Table 2.7.) Approximately 9.2 percent lived with neither parent. In 1970 the proportions of African-American children who lived with one parent (31.8 percent) or two parents (58.5 percent) were virtually the reverse of their living arrangements in 2000. In addition, a disproportionate number of African-Americans are in foster care. According to the Urban League in its annual report, "The State of Black America 2003," African-Americans account for nearly half of the 550,000 children in the foster care system.

Hispanic Children

In 2000, 65.1 percent of Hispanic children under age eighteen were living with both parents, compared to 75.3 percent of white children. (See Table 2.7.) Nearly one-third (29.5 percent) of Hispanic children were living in one-parent situations, considerably more than among whites (21.6 percent), but well below the proportion for African-Americans (53.3 percent). Approximately 5.4 percent of Hispanic children lived with neither parent.

Asian-American Children

The Asian-American family is typically close-knit and respectful of the authority of the elder members of the family. As the younger generation becomes more assimilated into American culture, however, the unchallenged role of elders may not remain as strong. Yet overall, family tradition and honor are still held in high regard. In 2000 most Asian-American children under age eighteen (80.5 percent) were living with both parents. About 14 percent lived with their mothers only, while 2.5 percent lived with their fathers only. Approximately 2.9 percent lived with neither parent. (See Table 2.7.)

At a Disadvantage

Regardless of race or ethnicity, children who live with only one parent are likely to live in more economically disadvantaged circumstances than are children who live with two parents. Children living with one parent are more likely to have parents who are less educated, are unemployed, or have lower incomes.

Housing Grandchildren

Because of many factors, including the high cost of housing, substance abuse, and the inability of some parents to care for their children, many children are living with their grandparents. Among African-Americans, 5.2 percent of children under the age of eighteen lived with a grandparent and neither parent in 2000. The proportion of children who lived with a grandparent is significantly higher (12 percent) when children who live with a grandparent and one or both parents are added to that total. (See Table 2.7.)

Approximately 1.6 percent of Hispanic children under the age of eighteen lived with a grandparent and neither parent in 2000. The proportion jumped to 6.1 percent when children who live with a grandparent and one or both parents are added. Among APIs, less than 1 percent of children under the age of eighteen lived with a grandparent and neither parent in 2000. The proportion

climbs to 4.4 percent when children who live with a grandparent and also with one or more parents are added. Among whites, 1.2 percent of children under eighteen lived with a grandparent and neither parent in 2000. Of white children under eighteen, 4 percent lived with a grandparent, either with neither parent, one parent, or both parents. (See Table 2.7.)

HOME OWNERSHIP

For most Americans, owning one's home is the American dream. Unfortunately, for many Americans, especially minorities, being able to purchase a home can be difficult. Census Bureau figures revealed that in 2002, 74.5 percent of non-Hispanic white householders owned their homes, but only 47.3 percent of African-Americans,

48.2 percent of Hispanics, and 54.7 percent of APIs owned their homes. (See Table 2.8.) These numbers actually reflect significant growth in the purchase of homes by minorities. From 1994 to 2002 the home ownership rate for non-Hispanic whites grew from 70 percent to 74.5 percent, while for Hispanics it grew from 41.2 percent to 48.2 percent and for African-Americans it improved from 42.3 percent to 47.3 percent. During this same period, APIs' home ownership grew from 51.3 to 54.7 percent.

Growth of Home Ownership

A number of factors were responsible for the growth of minority home ownership in the 1990s. The Clinton administration helped to provide greater lending opportunities