Childrens Family Arrangements: Implications for Family and Human Resource Polices

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Childrens Family ArrangementsImplications for
Family and Human Resource Polices

• Ronald B. Mincy
• Columbia University

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Family Types

• Married the childs biological parents are
  married and they both live with the child.
• Divorced-Visiting the childs biological parents
  were married when she was born, but they have
  since divorced or separated.
• Fragile-Cohabitating the childs biological
  parents are unmarried but they both live with the
  child.
• Fragile-visiting the childs biological parents
  have never been married to each other, the child
  lives with her mother only, and her father visits
  at least once per week.
• Single- mother the child lives with her mother
  only and her father visits infrequently or never,
  regardless of her parents current or past
  marital status.
• Other the child lives with her biological father
  and no other adult or with at least one adult who
  is not a biological parent and has no or
  infrequent contact with a biological father.

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The dominant family arrangements for children
(marriage and single-motherhood) show a strong
(direct and inverse) relationship to income.
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Figure I Family Arrangements of Children by
Income
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Fragile-visiting families are more important
low-income children

• Even at 200 percent of the poverty line, more
  children are in fragile-visiting families than in
  cohabiting or divorced families.
• 10 percent of poor children are in these families
• Have we over-estimated the importance of
  single-motherhood?

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However, the overall picture of childrens family
arrangements by income masks quite a bit of
racial, not ethnic, diversity .
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Changes in income are strongly associated with
the fraction of white and Hispanic children in
married and single-mother families.
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Figure IIA Family Arrangements of White Children
by Income
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Figure IIB Family Arrangements of Hispanic
Children by Income
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By contrast, changes in income have very little
association with the fraction of black children
in either of these family arrangements.
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Figure IIC Family Arrangements of Black Children
by Income
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Fragile-cohabiting and fragile-visiting families
are trivial family arrangements for white and
Hispanic children, but the latter is a vital
family arrangement for black children.
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Family Arrangements of Poor Infants by Race
(NSAF, 1999)
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Conclusions

• Increases in income are associated with higher
  proportions of white and Hispanic children in
  married families and lower proportions in single
  mother families.
• This does not necessarily establish a causal
  link.
• This will be hotly debated during welfare
  reauthorization in the coming weeks

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However

• Lost in this debate is the large proportion of
  children who live is that 10 percent of children
  live in (fragile-visiting families).
• They live with their unmarried mothers, but see
  their fathers at least once a week.
• Over the last 30 years, policy makers have made
  great strides in raising the paternity
  establishment rates and child support payments
  for these children.
• Except for a brief period in mid-1990s, efforts
  to sustain this visitation have been woefully
  neglected.

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Stop Ignoring unmarried fathers

• Human resource managers must acknowledge the
  fatherhood status of unmarried men to withhold
  child support
• They are oblivious to other needs of these
  fathers
• Unmarried fathers are often .
• assigned to the most inconvenient shifts
• expected to work weekends or long hours
• least likely to receive wage increases because
• these decisions are presumed to have no effects
  on their families.
• Not so. Assuming assortative mating by income,
  these decisions could reduce
• child care
• adult supervision and support and
• income available to children in the most
  vulnerable families.

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Especially if they are Black

• Whatever, policy makers and human resource
  managers do or fail to do with respect to
  unmarried fathers, the consequences will be most
  severe for black children.
• If black children have any contact with their
  fathers at all, they are most likely to do so in
  fragile-visiting families.