Parental work, family structure, and poverty among Latino children
1995
Lichter, D.T. | Landale, N.S.
This article evaluates the extent to which differences in the economic well-being of Latino and non-Latino White children reside in divergent parental work patterns and/or family living arrangements. This is accomplished using recently released data from the 5% Public Use Microdata Sample of the 1990 U.S. Census. The results indicate that group differences in family structure undermine efforts to eliminate racial and ethnic inequalities in children's economic well-being. Among Puerto Ricans and African Americans, the high proportions of children living in female-headed families account for over 50% of the difference in poverty from non-Latino Whites. Parental work patterns are more important among Latinos than Blacks in accounting for the high poverty rates of children. They explain roughly 40% of the poverty gap between Latino and non-Latino White children in female-headed families, although substantial variation exists across Latino groups. Overall, our analysis indicates that policies narrowly designed to "strengthen the family" or to promote maternal employment without regard to wage levels will neither eliminate inequality nor have similar ameliorative effects on child poverty across racial and ethnic groups.
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