Household Surveys

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau announced that the U.S. poverty rate reached 13.2 percent in 2008. Even this significant increase from the 12.5 percent rate in 2007 surely understates the share of Americans struggling to make ends meet today in September 2009.

The 14th annual Fact Book is a comprehensive data source for indicators of child well-being in the District of Columbia. Over 50 data indicators are tracked over time. This publication provides a broad perspective on the status of children and youth in the District. We seek to inform and educate our readers about the issues affecting children and their families in the District. We encourage community residents, policy makers, professionals, and others who work with and/or on behalf of children and families to create conditions that foster the optimal health and development of our children.

Providing long-term care to older adults is a growing challenge for American families. About 10 million people 65 and older now depend on such services, and that number is expected to double by 2040. A new report from the Urban Institute projects the number and percentage of people 65 and older with disabilities and their use of long-term care services.

The demand for long-term care services will surge in coming decades when the baby boomers reach their 80s. Declining family sizes, increasing childlessness, and rising divorce rates will limit the number of family caregivers. Rising female employment rates may further reduce the availability of family care, increasing the future need for paid home care. This study projects to 2040 the number of people ages 65 and older with disabilities and their use of long-term care services. The simulations show that even under the most optimistic scenario long-term care burdens on families and institutions will increase substantially.

Discussion and debate about adoption and foster care by gay, lesbian, and bisexual (GLB) parents occurs frequently among policymakers, social service agencies, and social workers. Three states currently restrict GLB people from adopting and more are considering similar policies. This report provides new information on GLB adoption and foster care from several government data sources. It offers a demographic portrait of the estimated 65,500 adopted children and 14,100 foster children living with gay and lesbian parents. It also assesses the costs to child welfare systems of proposed bans on allowing GLB people to foster.

In this "Five Question" feature, Tim Triplett, a research methodologist and part of Urban Institute's new Statistical Methods Group, talks about Lessons Learned from the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF). The experience of conducting NSAF demonstrates the necessity of flexibility in survey design. Proxies, incentives, and other survey methodologies are discussed.

The cornerstone of the ANF project was the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF), a survey of the economic, health, and social characteristics of children, adults under the age of 65, and their families. Conducted in 1997, 1999, and 2002 to gather information during each round on more than 100,000 people and more than 40,000 families across the country, the NSAF allowed researchers to watch national trends emerge. This report summarizes the pioneering steps and major accomplishments of the survey methods used to complete the NSAF, while acknowledging key challenges and important lessons for future household surveys.

While Congress and the administration debate the future of the 11-12 million unauthorized immigrants, it is important to look also at the more than 5 million children in families with unauthorized parents. Two-thirds of these children are U.S.-born citizens, a share that increases to 93 percent among those under age 6. A new fact sheet presents a statistical portrait of the children of immigrants.

The standard of living for children in kinship care improved significantly between 1997 and 2002, according to analyses of the National Survey of America's Families. The portion of children in kinship care living in poverty steadily declined. Similarly, findings reveal a downward trend in the portion of children in kinship care who did not have health insurance. Both of these trends were more pronounced for children in kinship arrangements that involved a child welfare agency than those that did not, though both groups' improvements were more dramatic than the gains made by children living with their parents.

Commissioned by the National Adoption Day Coalition, this report provides a first-time look at foster care adoption recruitment in the United States. Using data from the 1995 and 2002 National Survey of Family Growth and the state Child and Family Services Reviews, the report describes women's interest in adoption and strategies to find adoptive families for foster children. Findings indicate an overall increase in women interested in adoption, perhaps due to extensive recruitment efforts in recent years. At the same time, women interested in adopting were less likely to take steps to adopt in 2002 than they were in 1995.