while she was working, although this percentage declined considerably between 1965 and 1977; meanwhile, the proportion cared for in another home increased.

SUMMARY

Information on recent changes in marriage, divorce, and family structure provided the background for a discussion of the economic condition of the family and the employment status of women. Incorporated in the discussion were several special topics, including child support payments, noncash benefits to households (food stamps, medicaid, and public or other subsidized housing), childbearing during and after pregnancy, and child care arrangements.

The following highlights summarize this discussion:

During the mid-1970's, the fertility of American women was at a rate that would result in about 1.8 children by the end of their childbearing years, a level approximately one-half that recorded during the peak of the baby boom in the 1950's.

Marriage rates declined in the 1970's to the lowest level since 1940, so that by 1981 about 1 out of 5 women aged 25 to 29 years was still never married.

Births out-of-wedlock rose from 400,000 in 1970 to 600,000 in 1979. Among all white children born in 1979, 9 percent were born to unmarried mothers, compared with 55 percent of black children born out-of-wedlock in the same year.

Divorce is at record high levels, and if current rates persist almost half of all marriages would end in divorce.

Single-parent families increased by more than three-fourths during the 1970's, while married-couple families with our children present actually declined.

Median family income increased by 7 percent to $21,020 in 1980, but after adjustment for inflation at a rate of 14.2 percent, the 1980 real median family income represented a net decline of 5 percent from 1979, the largest decline recorded since the Second World War.

The poverty rate for families rose significantly in 1980 to 10.3 percent, the highest level since 1967.

Changes in family composition are an important factor that is significantly correlated with measured changes in income and poverty levels.

Among all ever-divorced, currently separated, or never-married women with children under 21 from an absent father, less than half were supposed to have received child support payments in 1978, and less than half of these women actually did receive full payments.

Among households that were below the poverty level in 1980 and were maintained by women with no husband present, 46 percent were receiving food stamps and 46 percent were covered by medicaid in 1980. Accounting for these noncash benefits significantly lowers the estimated number of poor.

In 1981, more than half of all women of working age were in the civilian labor force; 56 percent of all wives with children under 18 were in the labor force compared with 78 percent of all divorced women with children.

Among women who work full time, arrangements for child care are increasingly being made outside the home, especially in the home of a nonrelative or in group care centers.

In general, this country possesses several excellent statistical programs which continually monitor the status of the American family. There are well developed time series that facilitate comparisons with the past as well as provide the basis for making projections into the future. Of special note are time series from decennial censuses and vital statistics that extend back more than a hundred years and detailed annual survey data developed after the Second World War. As changes have occurred, however, it has become apparent that there now exist areas that should be much more extensively investigated in order to enable the Nation's policy makers to better understand the condition of families. For example, very little data are now available concerning adoption, and the reporting system for abortion should be expanded. In addition, statistics relating to marriage and divorce should be enhanced, in order to determine changes in the likelihood of divorce and remarriage, with their implications for the status of stepfamilies. This country must strive to maintain and improve the full range of statistics that give a continual reading of the social and economic situation in which the Nation's families exist.

Figure 1. Rate of First Marriage for Never-Married Women 14 to 34 Years Old, by Age: Marriage Registration Area, 1967-79

(Based on sample data. Rates per 1,000 population in specified
age group. Plotted on semi-logarithmic scale)

Figure 2.

Cumulative percent of cohort marriages ended by divorce through 1977 (solid bar) and percent of cohort marriages projected to end in divorce (cross-hatched bar), by year of marriage.

SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics. National Estimates of
Marriage Dissolution and Survivorship, by James A. Weed.
Vital and Health Statistics, Series 3, No. 19 (Nov. 1980).

Figure 3. Families Below the Poverty Level, by Type of Family: 1959 to 1980

Based on revised methodology.

SOURCE: Bureau of the Census. Money Income and Poverty Status of
Families and Persons in the United States: 1980. Current
Population Reports, Series P-60, No. 127 (August 1981),
Table 18, pp. 29-31.

Table 1.

Percent Single (Never Na-ried) for Momen 15 to 34 Years Old, by Age, Race,
and Spanish Origin: 1981, 1970, and 1960

Yerngue of Spanish sricia may be of ANY 2308.

SOURCES Bureau of the Census. Harital Status and Living Arrangments: March 1961.
Current Fopylation Reports, Series 2-20, Number 372. Table 2.

Portions of 1970 data from published Census Bureau tabulations.

1970 date for Spanish origin from Durean of the Census. 1970 Census of Population, PC(20)-2-0, Table 203.

Bureau of the Census. Karital Status. 1960 Census of Population, PC(2)-4E.