America's Children in Brief: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2008
Family and Social Environment
This section presents information on children's families and the social environment in which they live, beginning with indicators on the marital status and age of mothers to whom babies are born. The indicators in this section then examine children's family composition, nativity, and home language. These are followed by information on child maltreatment and teenage births.
There were 51 births for every 1,000 unmarried women ages 15–44 in 2006, up from 48 per 1,000 in 2005 (Figure 2).1 The birth rate for unmarried women has risen rapidly since 2002. The rate had been relatively stable between the mid–1990s and 2002, following a long-term increase between 1960 and 1994.
Figure 2 Birth rates for unmarried women by age of mother, 1980–2006
NOTE: The 2006 rate for total ages 15–44 is preliminary. 2006 data for specific age groups are not available.
SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System.
In 2006, 38 percent of all births were to unmarried women, up from 37 percent in 2005. Between 1980 and 2006, the percentage of births to unmarried women rose sharply for women in all age groups. Among teenagers, the percentage rose from 62 to 92 percent for ages 15–17 and from 40 to 81 percent for ages 18–19. The percentage tripled for births to women in their twenties, from 19 to 58 percent for women ages 20–24 and from 9 to 31 percent for women ages 25–29. The percentage of births to unmarried women in their thirties more than doubled from 8 to 18 percent.2
The percentage of children under age 18 living with two married parents3 fell from 77 percent in 1980 to 68 percent in 2007.4 In 2007, 23 percent of children lived with only their mothers, 3 percent lived with only their fathers, 3 percent lived with two unmarried parents, and 4 percent lived with neither of their parents.
In 2007, 18 percent of children were native-born with at least one foreign-born parent, and 4 percent were foreign-born with at least one foreign-born parent. Overall, the percentage of children living in the United States with at least one foreign-born parent rose from 15 percent in 1994 to 22 percent in 2007.
In 2006, 20 percent of school-age children spoke a language other than English at home and 5 percent of school-age children had difficulty speaking English. The percentage of school-age children who spoke a language other than English at home varied by region, from a low of 11 percent in the Midwest to a high of 34 percent in the West.
Child maltreatment includes physical, sexual, and psychological abuse, as well as neglect (including medical neglect), and is associated with a number of negative outcomes for children.5 In 2006, there were 12 substantiated child maltreatment reports per 1,000 children ages 0–17. Younger children were more frequently victims of child maltreatment than older children.
In 2006, the adolescent birth rate6 was 22 births per 1,000 young women ages 15–17 (138,920 births), up from 21 births per 1,000 in 2005 (Figure 3). This was the first increase in this measure since the increase between 1990 and 1991.7, 8, 9 Between 1991 and 2005, the birth rate for Black, non-Hispanic teenagers ages 15–17 dropped from 86 to 35 per 1,000 and that for White, non-Hispanic teenagers dropped from 24 to 12 per 1,000.7, 9 Rates for both groups increased in 2006, while the rate for Hispanic teenagers was not different.
Figure 3 Birth rates for females ages 15–17 by race and Hispanic origin, 1980–2006
NOTE: Data for 2006 are preliminary. Race refers to mother's race. Although state reporting of birth certificate data is transitioning to comply with the 1997 OMB standard for race and ethnic statistics, all data in the figure have been mapped back to the 1977 OMB standard to present consistent categories over time. Rates for 1980–1989 are not shown for Hispanics; White, non-Hispanics; or Black, non-Hispanics because information on Hispanic origin of the mother was not reported on birth certificates of most states and because population estimates by Hispanic ethnicity for the reporting states were not available. For more information, see footnote 7.
SOURCE: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System.
1 Hamilton, B.E., Martin, J.A., and Ventura, S.J. (2007). Births: Preliminary data for 2006. National Vital Statistics Reports, 56(7). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
2 National Center for Health Statistics. National Vital Statistics System. (2007). Unpublished tabulations.
3 Parents can be step, biological, or adoptive.
4 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, Annual Social and Economic Supplement (2007).
5 Office on Child Abuse and Neglect, Department of Health and Human Services. (2003). A Coordinated Response to Child Abuse and Neglect: The Foundation for Practice. Retrieved August 28, 2006, from the Child Welfare Information Gateway, http://www.childwelfare.gov/pubs/usermanuals/foundation/foundationf.cfm.
6 The birth rate for adolescents ages 15–17 includes married and unmarried teenagers.
7 Martin, J.A., Hamilton, B.E., Sutton, P.D., Ventura, S.J., Menacker, F.J., Kirmeyer, S., and Munson, M.L. (2007). Births: Final data for 2005. National Vital Statistics Reports, 56(6). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
8 Hamilton, B.E., Martin, J.A., and Ventura, S.J. (2007). Births: Preliminary data for 2006. National Vital Statistics Reports, 56(7). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.
9 Hamilton, B.E., Sutton, P.D., and Ventura, S.J. (2003). Revised birth and fertility rates for the 1990s: United States, and new rates for Hispanic populations, 2000 and 2001. National Vital Statistics Reports, 51(12). Hyattsville, MD: National Center for Health Statistics.