Just under half of all children growing up in the 1990s experienced part of their childhood living with an unmarried parent (Bumpass and Lu 2000). Approximately 35 percent of children born between 1970 and 1990 experienced a spell of poverty before reaching age 15. Previous research has linked these aspects of childhood household experience to child cognitive and socio-emotional development. Basic descriptions of change and variation in children's household experiences guide researchers interested in understanding the implications of family change and growing socioeconomic inequality for the health and well-being of the next generation. Yet we do not have contemporary descriptions of children's family experiences while growing up or how these experiences vary by race-ethnicity or maternal education. Using data from the 2008 and 2014 SIPP panels this project will produce estimates of the percentage of children experiencing a single parent family and percent experiencing poverty, as well as duration in single-parent family and duration in poverty as well as overall household and income instability.
This project will produce contemporary descriptions of children's household experiences over the course of childhood, how they vary by race-ethnicity or maternal education, and how socioeconomic differentials are changing over time. Specifically, it will use an innovative approach to analyzing prospective household roster data to estimate the percentage of children experiencing a single parent family, percent experiencing poverty, cumulative number of years in single-parent family, duration in poverty, as well as overall household and income instability. Researchers and policy makers require this basic information to effectively allocate resources (time, money, expertise) to benefit child health and well-being.
