Research Reports and News Posted March 2001:
Fathers--Research |
Children & Families |
Census Data |
Welfare Reform
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Involving Non-Resident Fathers In Children's Learning, Donna E. Shalala,
Olivia A. Golden and David Gray Ross, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, September 2000.
Introduction:
Across the nation, there is a growing recognition of the importance of
involving fathers in their children's learning. With more than half of
children in the United States spending at least some portion of their lives
in a home without a father, finding innovative ways to engage fathers as
active participants in their children's lives -- both financially and emotionally
-- has never been more important. Federal and state governments are promoting
responsible fatherhood by improving work opportunities for low-income fathers,
increasing paternity establishment and child support collections, enhancing
parenting skills, promoting adult education and family literacy, supporting
access and visitation by non-custodial parents, helping communities address
domestic violence, and involving boys and young men in preventing teenage
pregnancy.
Schools, early childhood programs, child care agencies, family service
organizations, after-school Teachers and family caregivers have long recognized
that childrenís educational success depends on the active involvement of
both fathers and mothers. The dramatic rise over the past thirty years
in the number of children growing up in fatherless homes poses a special
challenge for educators. By age 18, it is estimated that more than half
of the children in the United States will spend part of their childhood
in a single-parent home (Cherlin, 1992), usually away from their father
(Nord, Brimhall, & West, 1997). For a variety of reasons, contact with
the non-custodial father may lessen over time or become non-existent (Furstenberg
et al; Furstenberg & Nord; Seltzer & Bianchi as cited in Nord &
Zill, 1996b, p, A-10), leaving children without one of their most important
resources for future success ó their fathers.
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Income and Demographic Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers in 1993,
Elaine Sorensen and Laura Wheaton, The Urban Institute, June 2000.
Executive Summary:
During the past few years, research has shown that nonresident fathers,
as a whole, can afford to pay more child support, but that a minority of
them are poor and have a limited ability to pay child support. This report
updates and improves upon earlier analyses and provides more information
on the circumstances of low-income fathers. The findings of this analysis
confirm that strengthening child support enforcement is warranted, but
that poor fathers may need a different approach, one that focuses on building
their capacity to pay child support.
In the 1993 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), 8 million
men self-identified as
nonresident fathers compared to 10 million women who self-identified
as custodial mothers. Thus, making a general assumption that there are
likely to be an equal number of nonresident fathers and custodial mothers,
this survey identifies 80 percent of nonresident fathers, a figure that
is substantially higher than that found in earlier research.
Of the nonresident fathers who are missed by the 1993 SIPP, about 70
percent were missed because they lived in prisons or military barracks,
were in the military overseas, or were missed through the problem of the
"undercount." The remaining 30 percent of nonresident fathers who are missed
by the 1993 SIPP are actually present in surveyed households, but cannot
be identified as nonresident fathers. We reweight the men who self-identify
as nonresident fathers to take the missing fathers into account so that
the final analysis is more representative of all nonresident fathers.
Using the reweighted data, we find that nonresident fathers, as a whole,
are considerably better off
financially than custodial mothers as a whole. In 1993, nearly two-thirds
of custodial mothers had family incomes below 200 percent of the poverty
threshold. In contrast, 60 percent of nonresident fathers had incomes above
200 percent of the poverty threshold that year. One in four nonresident
fathers had incomes above 200 percent of the poverty threshold in 1993
and did not contribute financially to their nonresident children. This
discrepancy in the financial situation of custodial mothers and nonresident
fathers suggests that there is potential for some nonresident fathers to
increase the amount of support that they provide their nonresident children.
We also find, however, that 40 percent of nonresident fathers have family
incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold and the majority of
these do not pay child support. Low-income nonresident fathers who pay
support, pay a higher percentage of their income than do higher income
fathers. Low-income fathers who do not pay child support tend to be considerably
disadvantaged in the labor market--about half do not have a high school
degree and about half have not held a job in the past 12 months. Nearly
20 percent of them are incarcerated. Increased enforcement efforts are
unlikely to collect sufficient child support from low-income fathers to
substantially improve their children's financial circumstances. A different
approach may work better, one that emphasizes employment-related services
and other support services that enable low-income fathers to improve their
job skills and parenting.
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Current Trends in Child Abuse Prevention, Reporting, and Fatalities: The
1999 Fifty State Survey, Nancy Peddle and Ching-Tung Wang, National
Center on Child Abuse Prevention Research, April 2001.
Introduction:
Concern for the welfare of children, particularly those who are abused or neglected, has been longstanding among medical and health professions, social service providers, and the general public. Legislation which defines child abuse and determines the appropriate role for child welfare agencies has been a part of state statutes for nearly 30 years (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999).
In 1974, the Federal government adopted a more direct role in child abuse policy with the passage of P.L. 93-247, the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). Although the passage of this legislation established a set of uniform operating standards with respect to the identification and management of child abuse cases, states are able to determine definitions of maltreatment, investigative procedures, service systems and data collection procedures. Moreover, implementation of CAPTA at the state levels emphasizes treatment over prevention. Documenting the problem is a necessary but insufficient step in preventing child abuse and neglect. The challenge to collecting national totals on child abuse statistics and prevention efforts remains current. Limited information is readily available on the comparative scope of the child abuse given varying definitions and recording systems; likewise, child maltreatment prevention resources suffer from a lack of availability, uniformity, and standardization. Unlike prior annual surveys, this 1999 edition includes data on both state prevention efforts and child abuse and neglect.
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A Single Index of Child Well-Being, The Child Indicator, Vol.2, Iss. 4, Child Trends, Winter 2001.
Article excerpt:
One number to capture the overall well-being of children in the United States? This is the ambitious goal of Ken Land, Duke University researcher, and the Foundation for Child Development that sponsors his work. Dozens of indicators of well-being available from the federal statistical system tell us how children are doing in particular aspects of their lives, but there are no generally accepted measures to tell us how they are doing overall.
Dr. Land is developing the index in much the same way economists developed the Consumer Price Index, by grouping like measures together into broad domains of well-being, then combining the domains into a single index. Working with seven domains taken from quality of life' research, he uses a total of 28 measures distributed as follows:
- Material Well-being (4)
- Social Relationships (2)
- Health (6)
- Safety/Behavioral Concerns (6)
- Productive Activity (2)
- Place in Community (5)
- Emotional/Spiritual Well-being (3)
For a copy of the complete article, download the Child Indicator in PDF format from the Child Trends web site.
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The 2000 Census: Measures of Child Well-Being and Data Products, Mark Mather; Population Reference Bureau, The Child Indicator, Vol.2, Iss. 4, Child Trends, Winter 2001.
Article excerpt:
The decennial census is our best source for state and local estimates of the social and economic circumstances that shape the lives of America's 70 million children. Data from the 2000 census will be more accessible than previous census data, and all those with access to the World Wide Web will have a wealth of national, state and local data on children, youth, and families at their fingertips.
The decennial census has two components. The short form, or 100-percent questionnaire, was mailed to every housing unit in the United States and includes questions about relationship to householder, race, gender, home ownership, age, and ethnicity. About one in six households nationwide also received the long form, or sample questionnaire which includes additional questions about marital status, citizenship, education, migration, disability, employment, income, public assistance, and household characteristics.
The first data on children from the 2000 census will be released in March 2001 for local and congressional redistricting. These data, from the 100-percent questionnaire, will include counts of the total population and the adult population (ages 18 and older) by race and Hispanic origin. The number of children in each racial/ethnic group can be calculated by subtracting the adult population from the total population.
 Between June and September 2001, the Census Bureau will release more detailed tables from the short form, including counts of children by single year of age and basic cross-tabulations of age, gender, race, Hispanic origin, home ownership, and relationship to householder, including the number of children living with nonrelatives, in single or dual-parent households, or in group quarters. Data from the 100-percent questionnaire will be available for geographic areas down to the block level.
Tables from the long-form questionnaire are scheduled to be released between December 2001 and March 2002, but some of the more detailed data files will not be available until 2003. Long-form tables will include information on child poverty; welfare assistance; parental employment, earnings, and educational attainment; school enrollment; idle teens (high school dropouts who are not working); physical limitation; children in linguistically isolated house-holds; country of birth; and migration in the past five years. Data from the long form will be available for geographic areas down to the block group or neighborhood level.
Those who have used data from the 1990 census will find some important differences in the 2000 data. One question relevant to children's issues--the number of children ever born--was dropped from the questionnaire, while another-grandparents as caregivers--was added. The latter was added to provide information on the number of grandparents who have primary responsibility for grandchildren in the household. A more significant change in 2000 is the revised question on racial identification; this is the first census in which respondents were allowed to mark more than one race. In 1990, there were five race categories: white, black, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian and Pacific Islander, and "other race." The 2000 census included six basic race categories: white, black, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, and "some other race." But because respondents could, for the first time, identify with multiple racial groups, there are 63 possible race combinations. These multiple race categories will complicate comparisons of 2000 data with 1990 data, especially for children, who are more likely than adults to be identified as multiracial.
For a copy of the complete article, download the Child Indicator in PDF format from the Child Trends web site.
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Census Bureau Releases Update on Country's African American Population, U.S. Bureau of the Census, February 22, 2001.
Press Release:
The Commerce Department's Census Bureau today issued new data on the African
American population showing that 79 percent of African Americans age 25 and over
had earned at least a high school diploma and 17 percent had attained at least
a bachelor's degree by March 2000. Both percentages represented record levels of
educational attainment.
The Census Bureau cautioned the public not to confuse the new estimates with
Census 2000 results, which are scheduled for release over the next three years.
According to the 2000 estimates, there were 8.7 million African American
families. Less than one-half (48 percent) of all African American families
were married-couple families, 44 percent were maintained by women with no
spouse present and 8 percent were maintained by men with no spouse present.
Other highlights:
- Among African American men age 15 and over, 39 percent were currently
married, 3 percent were widowed and 10 percent were divorced. Among women,
the corresponding proportions were 31 percent, 10 percent and 12 percent. A
similar proportion -- 42 percent -- of African American men and women had
never married.
- African American families tend to be larger than White, not of Hispanic
origin families. For example, 21 percent of African American married-couple
families had five or more members, compared with 12 percent of their White,
not Hispanic, counterparts.
- African American women, age 16 and over, were more likely than their White,
not Hispanic, counterparts to participate in the labor force (64 percent
compared with 61 percent). For men, the reverse was true. African American
men had a participation rate of 68 percent compared with 74 percent of
White, not Hispanic men.
- Among African Americans age 16 and over who were employed, 25 percent of
women and 18 percent of men worked in managerial and professional specialty
occupations.
- The 1999 median household income was the highest ever recorded, in real
terms, for African Americans ($27,910).
- Half (51 percent) of African American married-couple families had incomes of
$50,000 or more, compared with 60 percent of their White, not Hispanic,
counterparts.
- In 1999, the poverty rate for African Americans fell to a record low of
23.6 percent.
- About 47 percent of African American householders were homeowners.
These findings on the African American population are available in two
different products released today. One is a series of 21 tables from the
March 2000 Current Population Survey (CPS) titled Black Population in the U.S.: March 2000, PPL-142, covering such topics as age, marital status, family
type and size, education, occupation, income, poverty and housing. They also
show comparable national data for Whites, not of Hispanic origin.
The other product is a special edition of the Census Bureau's monthly Facts
for Features, celebrating African American History Month in February. It consists of narrative on many of the same topics as the tables, plus
national-level population projections and population by state and county.
Statistics from sample surveys are subject to sampling and nonsampling error.
The March 2000 CPS uses the 1990 census as the base for its sample.
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Will Welfare Reform Hurt Low-Skilled Workers?, María E. Enchautegui, Urban Institute, February 2001.
Abstract:
Welfare reform is expected to send hundreds of thousands of women to work. This paper evaluates whether the entrance of welfare recipients into the labor market might result in a decline in wages and employment of other low-skilled workers. An increase in the number of ex-welfare mothers may drive down the wages and employment of U.S.-born workers without a high school degree. Specifically, a 10 % growth in the number of working welfare recipients reduces the employment of low-skilled U.S.-born men by 2 % and reduces their wages by .3 %. Immigrants, the most important source of growth in low-skilled labor, do not pose a challenge to the labor market absorption of welfare recipients. The most adverse effects of an increased number of working welfare mothers comes from the high sensitivity of these women, and women with low educational levels in general, to their own labor supply.
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Local Economic Conditions and Welfare Receipt, Stephan Goetz, Julie
N. Zimmerman, Fisseha Tegegne, and colleagues, Joint Center for Policy
Research, April 2001.
Article Excerpt:
Nationwide, welfare caseloads have been cut in half since the mid-1990s. Looking at the national caseload, however, often masks differences across and even within states. Rural areas, for example, may not experience the same benefits that a robust economy confers on welfare caseloads in urban areas. Although rural recipients are more likely to be employed than those in central cities, rural women leaving assistance have lower earnings than their urban counterparts. They also have fewer job supports (such as day care and transportation), and the local economies can be more limited in the types of jobs offered.
The local job market is therefore critical in an era of time limits and strict work mandates for welfare recipients. The local economy, more so than the national economy, is likely to have an immediate impact on the ability of recipients to find work. Examining local conditions and markets can point to potential problems and aid in better targeting services and supports to welfare recipients making the transition to work.
Stephan Goetz, Julie N. Zimmerman, Fisseha Tegegne, and coauthors, in their working paper, "Economic Downturns and Welfare Reform: An Exploratory County-Level Analysis," examine the relationship between local economic and social conditions and participation in welfare programs. Using data from Kentucky on welfare caseloads, they estimate the effect on caseloads of local unemployment rates, job growth by sector, potential earnings, the availability of day care, and the type of county (urban or rural, adjacent or not adjacent to a metro area). They also consider various individual characteristics of those receiving assistance (age, number of children, time on welfare).
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