The percentage of 5- to 17-year-olds whose parents had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 19 percent in 1979 to 35 percent in 2006.

The percentage of school-age children (ages 5–17) whose parents had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 19 percent in 1979 to 35 percent in 2006 (see table 6-1); this same measure increased for White children (from 22 to 44 percent), Black children (from 5 to 21 percent), and Hispanic children (from 7 to 15 percent). In 2006, a higher percentage of parents of White children had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher than did parents of Black or Hispanic children.

The percentage of school-age children living in two-parent households decreased from 75 percent in 1979 to 67 percent in 2006; however, this percentage has remained between 67 and 69 percent since 1995. Another 23 percent of children lived only with their mother and 5 percent were in father-only households in 2006. Higher percentages of White (75 percent) and Hispanic (65 percent) children lived in two-parent households than did their Black (35 percent) peers in 2006. One-half of Black children lived in mother-only households, compared with about one-fourth of Hispanic children and 16 percent of White children.

The percentage of school-age children living in families below the poverty threshold increased from 15 percent in 1979 to 21 percent in 1995, and then decreased to 16 percent in 2002. In 2006, a larger percentage of children were living in poor households than in 1979 (17 vs. 15 percent), but both were lower than the high in 1995 of 21 percent. This same general pattern was evident across racial/ethnic groups. The percentage of White children in poor households increased from 9 percent in 1979 to 12 percent in 1995, and then decreased to 10 percent in 2006. The percentage of Black children in poor households increased from 41 percent in 1979 to 44 percent in 1992, and then decreased to 33 percent in 2006. Among Hispanics, this percentage increased from 27 percent in 1979 to 40 percent in 1995, and then decreased to 26 percent in 2006.

In 2006, some 95 percent of school-age children were born in the United States, not measurably different from the percentage in 1995 (when citizenship data were first collected). A higher percentage of Hispanics (86 percent) were born in the United States in 2006 than in 1995 (81 percent), but no measurable differences were detected for Whites or Blacks over this same period.