Child Poverty Among Racial Minorities and Immigrants: Explaining Trends and Differentials^*

Abstract

Objective. This article examines the effects of changing family structure (including cohabitation) and maternal employment during the 1990s on child poverty rates across America's diverse racial and ethnic groups. Unlike most previous studies focused on broad pan‐ethnic groups, our analyses examine children distinguished by race/ethnicity, immigrant generation, and national origin (e.g., Mexican, Japanese, Middle Eastern, among others). Methods. The analyses, using methods of demographic standardization, are based on data from the 1990 and 2000 Public Use Microdata Samples of the U.S. Decennial Censuses. Results. Child poverty rates declined broadly across population groups in the 1990s. Increasing maternal employment during the 1990s, rather than changing family structure, accounted for the largest share (nearly 40 percent) of the recent decline in child poverty rates. Changes in family structure played a minor role in reducing child poverty for most of the 25 groups considered in this article. Differences in family structure accounted for a large part of observed child poverty differences between minority groups. Conclusions. Rapid increases in maternal employment during the 1990s provided a hedge against rising child poverty and a route to economic self‐sufficiency for growing shares of single mothers and their children.

Economic Well-being and Cohabitation: Another Nonmetro Disadvantage?

“…In addition, the changing nature of family and household composition require poverty scholars to consider how family demographic trends complicate the issue of assessing poverty and have made traditional family poverty measures less relevant and recommend new thinking in this regard (Lichter, 2006;Lichter et al, 2005). For these reasons we use a household level as the unit of analysis when examining poverty and all other economic well-being outcomes in this study.…”

Chinese Children Among the Poor: Comparing U.S. Natives with Immigrants from Taiwan, Mainland China, and Hong Kong

“…At the national level, the growing proportion of children living in female-headed families is a primary reason for long-term rises in child poverty, 3 while rising labor force participation rates among mothers, especially single mothers, have been an important hedge against child poverty over the past decade (Iceland 2004;Lichter et al 2005). …”

“…The sum of these weighted, group-specific rates tells us what the poverty rate would have been if the population had been differently distributed into subgroups-a ''standard population'' (in contrast to the observed population; Preston et al 2001). This approach has been recently used to determine how much of the decline in child poverty between 1992 and 2001 was attributable to shifts in maternal employment (Lichter and Crowley 2004) and how much of the decline in child poverty between 1990 and 2000 was attributable to compositional shifts in family structure versus maternal employment (Lichter et al 2005). We use the Categorical Data Analysis System (CDAS), Version 3.5 (Eliason 2003), to investigate the degree to which compositional shifts (in family structure and maternal work) affects poverty trends among native-born and immigrant Chinese children distinguished by place of birth.…”

“…For foreign-born Chinese, we also examine differences in child poverty rates among immigrants from Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau, and Taiwan. Like other recent aggregate trend studies (e.g., Lichter et al 2005), our statistical analysis uses methods of demographic standardization to evaluate the implications of changing maternal employment and family structure, including cohabitation, on poverty rates among Chinese American children. Our findings provide evidence about the economic circumstances of America's Chinese children and the pace of economic incorporation among Chinese immigrants.…”

The Influence of Social Supports on Employment for Hispanic, Black, and White Unmarried Mothers

“…child poverty rates (Lichter et al 2005). Although employment does not dictate selfsufficiency or the ability to escape poverty (for example, see Bok and Simmons 2002), potential benefits from employment and stringent work requirements under TANF call into question what facilitates unmarried mothers' employment.…”