Increasing the Percentage of Children Living in Two-Parent Families
The Annie E. Casey Foundation
July 2009
Summary
Issue Overview
Parents raising children together tend to have more money, more flexibility and more time to supervise their children, offer emotional support, take an active part in their education, and arrange other activities for them. Today, many children go without these benefits. In 2007, 32 percent of children in the United States were living with one parent. The percentage has nearly tripled since 1970. This trend disproportionately affects disadvantaged children and children of color.
Promising Strategies
Four strategies are essential for any plan aimed at increasing the number of children who live in two-parent families.
- Base policymaking on research linking economic security and family stability. LiRecent research has focused on economic factors that undermine family formation and stability. A critical challenge is helping low-skill workers and workers living in low-income communities gain the economic stability needed to form and support families.stText
- Encourage and support stable marriages and families. Marriage entails a personal commitment and has, for many Americans, a religious aspect as well. Nevertheless, policymakers play a role in providing incentives (or disincentives) for marriage. Policymakers can also expand access to education and counseling services that support stable marriages and families.
- Ensure that children benefit from both parents’ emotional and financial support. Policymakers can take steps to ensure that whatever their living arrangements, children benefit emotionally and economically from both parents. They can craft and sustain policies and programs that support fragile families, help noncustodial parents become good nurturers and providers, and enforce child-support obligations.
- Support research on the effects of family structure on children’s well-being. Recent research has shed light on the impact of different kinds of families on children, and about the kinds of interventions that can strengthen parents’ relationships, promote healthy parent-child interactions, and foster family formation and permanence. But many important questions remain unanswered and many misperceptions about nonmarital childbearing and single-parenthood remain unchallenged.
To read the whole indicator brief go to Increasing the Percentage of Children Living in Two-Parent Families