University of Wisconsin - Madison JXL 7 ~ ' Institute for Research on Poverty

The poverty rate among children is higher today than it was in the late 1960s, a few years after the War on Poverty was launched. In 1969, 13.8 percent of all children lived in families with incomes below the poverty line; in 1988, 19.7 percent did. Whereas most studies of child poverty focus on the negative effects of deteriorating economic circumstances and the increasing percentage of children living in single-parent families, this paper considers two demographic factors which also affect measured poverty and family income inequality among children: reductions in the number of children per family, and the changing personal characteristics of women who have children. Using a reduced form model which describes how marital status, the number of children, and family income vary with a set of exogenous characteristics, we calculate how much of the changes in child poverty and the log variance of family income reflect changes in these demographic and economic factors. We conclude that the relatively small changes in child poverty for blacks and whites since the late 1960s reflect large, but offsetting, demographic and economic changes. Decreases in the number of children per family and increased maternal educational attainment were poverty-decreasing and offset the poverty-increasing impact of the trend toward single parenthood. Economic stagnation and the increasing inequality of family incomes are important factors that also account for the disappointing trends in child poverty. Family Structure, Family Size, and Family Income: Accounting for Changes in the Economic Well-Being of Children, 1968-1986