Marriage Promotion and the Living Arrangements of Black, Hispanic, and White Children

No. B-61 in Series, "New Federalism: National Survey of America's Families"

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With the enactment of welfare reform in 1996, encouraging and supporting marriage became priorities for the federal government and the states. Research findings that children in married families generally fare better than those in single-parent families on measures of poverty, hardship, and well-being have provided the rationale for marriage promotion policies. In this brief, we examine racial and ethnic differences in children's living arrangements. We give special attention to racial and ethnic variation in the characteristics of single-parent households and the implications for child well-being. Current proposals to promote marriage, we suggest, may be too narrow to benefit most low-income black children, the group of children least likely to be living with two married parents.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 created the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. Three of the four statutory purposes of TANF refer to family formation or the promotion of marriage. The Bush administration, as part of its TANF reauthorization proposal, has asked Congress to place more emphasis on marriage by earmarking TANF funds for marriage promotion (White House 2002). The House of Representatives and the Senate Finance Committee have each approved reauthorization bills that include funds for marriage promotion. Both versions direct spending to specific marriage promotion activities, including public advertising and education on the value of marriage, divorce reduction programs, couples training, and marriage mentoring. States may also develop programs to remove financial disincentives to marriage within means-tested programs, but only if the programs are offered with the other activities. This approach to family policy is narrower than what some authors have proposed.¹

To analyze racial and ethnic variation in children's living arrangements, we use data from the 1997 and 2002 National Survey of America's Families (NSAF).² Because marriage promotion efforts aim to increase the share of children living in married two-parent families, we classify children's living arrangements according to the number of biological or adoptive parents in the household and their marital status:

• Married-parent families. Children living with two biological parents who are married or two adoptive parents who are married.
• Married-blended families. Children living with a biological parent who is married to an adoptive parent or stepparent, or an adoptive parent who is married to a stepparent.³
• Cohabiting-parent families. Children living with two unmarried biological parents or two unmarried adoptive parents.
• Single-parent families. Children living with one unmarried biological, step, or adoptive parent.⁴ Asingle parent, as we use the term, may be the only adult in the household, or may live with an unmarried partner who is not related to the child, with the child's grandparents, or with other relatives.
• No-parent families. Children living independently or under foster or kinship care.

Notes from this section

1. For example, see Robert Lerman, "Should Government Promote Healthy Marriages?" (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2002); Ronald Mincy and Helen Oliver, "Age, Race, and Children's Living Arrangements: Implications for TANF Reauthorization" (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2003); and Theodora Ooms, Stacey Bouchet, and Mary Parke, Beyond Marriage Licenses: Efforts in States to Strengthen Marriage and Two-Parent Families (Washington, DC: Center for Law and Social Policy, 2004). See also Acs and Nelson (2004) and Smock and Manning (2004).

2. Throughout this brief, children are defined as age 17 and younger. Our analysis groups children into three different racial and ethnic categories: white non-Hispanic, black non-Hispanic, and Hispanics of all races. To be concise, we refer to these groups as white, black, and Hispanic. Data for all races and ethnicities include the above categories, in addition to American Indian, Alaska Native, Pacific Islander, and Asian populations.

3. This category also includes a small number of other cases involving a married parent, such as a stepparent married to another stepparent.

4. We also classify children residing with one biological parent and one adoptive parent, not married to each other, as living in single-parent families.

Note: This report is available in its entirety in the Portable Document Format (PDF).

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