Monday, November 24, 2008

Rural children now less likely than urban children to live in homes with married couples

Children in rural areas are now less likely to be living in married-couple families than those in urban areas, according to new data from the Census Bureau. In 1990, 76 percent of rural children lived in married couple homes; now the figure is 68 percent. Meanwhile, the urban percentage declined from 72 to 69. The numbers for suburban children dropped 5 percentage points, less than the declined for rural children.

"The poverty rate for children in married-couple families is 9 percent compared to 21 percent for those in male-headed and 43 percent for those in female-headed families," note William P. O’Hare and Allison Churilla in a Carsey Institute report from the University of New Hampshire. "Consequently, the decline in the share of rural children living in married-couple families since 2000 may help explain the 3 percentage point rise in child poverty in rural America between 2000 and 2006." (Read more)

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