Transcript PowerPoint

Children in Cities: Uncertain Prospects
Isabel V. Sawhill
Presentation at conference on “Census 2000: Growing Together or Growing
Apart? Population Trends and Their Implications for Cities and Metropolitan
Areas,” Nov. 1, 2002, Berkeley, CA
Focus of This Paper
 Changes in children’s early family environments
 Focus on young (under 6) children. A window into the future. But a future
that can still be changed.
 Three categories: children with good, average, and poor environments and
prospects
 Of interest: Not just the average environment but whether there is greater
variance or inequality in early environments
 Greater inequalities in children’s current environments are likely to
translate into a more unequal distribution of income or other social
divisions in the future
 Implications for cities vs. suburbs
 California vs. the nation
Definitions, Assumptions, Data
 Children with poor prospects have 3 of the following:
 An unmarried mother
 A teen mother
 A mother with less than a high school education
 A family with a poverty-level income
Rationale: research suggests that, on average, children in such families
will have greater difficulty achieving adult success.
 Children with good prospects have 3 of the following:
 A married mother
 A mother 26 or older at birth of her first child
 A mother who is a college grad
 A family with income at 4 times the poverty level
 All other children are assumed to have “average prospects”
Data: The Current Population Survey for 1976, 1996, and 2002
Figure 1. Children's Prospects are Increasingly
Unequal, United States, 1975 and 2001
90%
80%
83%
70%
60%
1975
2001
60%
50%
40%
30%
31%
20%
10%
9%
8%
0%
Good
Average
Poor
9%
Figure 2. Children's Prospects,
California v. United States, 2001
90%
80%
70%
60%
63%
California
60%
50%
United
States
40%
30%
29% 31%
20%
10%
8%
0%
Good
Average
Poor
9%
Figure 3. Children in Cities and Suburbs by Risk Factor,
United States, 2001
40%
35%
34%
30%
25%
26%
25%
25%
Cities
Suburbs
20%
15%
17%
14%
10%
12%
12%
5%
0%
Unmarried
Mother
Teenage Mother
PoorlyEducated
Mother
Poverty-Level
Income
Figure 4. All Children by Risk Factor,
United States, 1975 and 2001
40%
39%
35%
30%
27%
25%
1975
2001
24%
20%
20%
17%
15%
10%
17% 18%
11%
5%
0%
Unmarried
Mother
Teenage Mother Poorly-Educated
Mother
Poverty-Level
Income
Figure 5. All Children by Risk Factor,
California v. United States, 2001
40%
35%
30%
25%
26%
24%
California
20%
19%
20% 20%
17%
15%
17%
18%
10%
5%
0%
Unmarried
Mother
Teenage Mother Poorly-Educated
Mother
Poverty-Level
Income
United
States
Results and Implications
 Children’s prospects are increasingly unequal. This
foreshadows an increasingly unequal and divided society in
the future.
 Families are more geographically segregated by risk status
than in the past. Children who live in central cities are now
more than twice as likely to be at high risk than those in the
suburbs, placing special burdens on cities and making
suburban voters less likely to support needed change.
 California’s children face risks similar to children in the rest
of the nation.
 One difference: higher-risk children in California are more
likely to live in intact but poorly educated families.