Updating Children's Life Course

Dramatic changes have occurred in children's family experiences, and these changes are even more dramatic when actual living arrangements, not just parental marital statuses, are considered. According to data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, by age 17, 19% of white children born in 1950-1954 had lived with only one parent. By age 17, 70% of white children born in 1980 are projected to have spent at least some time with only one parent before they reach age 18. The proportion was 48% for black children born in 1950-1954 and is projected to be 94% for black children born in 1980. Of course, these figures do not indicate the actual proportion of their lives children spend in various family types. White children born in 1950-1954 could expect to spend 8% of their childhood with only one parent, black children 22%o. Of those children born in 1980, white children can be expected to spend 31% of their childhood years with one parent, black children 59%. Children's experience depends on family type at birth. Sixty-four percent of white children born in 1980 into a first-marriage family could expect to live at some point in a one-parent family by age 17; they could expect to spend 25% of their childhood in such a family. The comparable figures are 89% and 44% for black children born in the same year.