Estimating Children''s Household Instability between Birth and Age 16 Using Longitudinal Household Roster Data (SIPP)
Kelly Raley, University of Texas
Inbar Weiss, University of Texas
Shannon Cavanagh, University of Texas
Thispaper aims to use the longitudinal data available in the Survey of Income andProgram Participation (SIPP) to describe levels of household instability childrenexperience while growing up and how this varies by race-ethnicity and parentaleducation. Recent estimates from the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) showthat on average children experience about one transition by age 12, countingonly mothers’ marital-cohabitation transitions. How does this estimate compareto those that consider other sources of household instability? Our analyseswill also consider variation by race-ethnicity and education.
We use dataon over 130,000, collected September 2008 to August 2013, in 15 waves ofinterviews conducted four months apart. Our approach does not assume thatchildren live with mothers and does not rely on retrospective reports, but insteadcontemporaneous ones. Every interview collected a roster of household members andeach member of the household has a unique identifier. Our measure ofcomposition change, captures any change in household membership by comparingthe sets of unique identifiers in consecutive waves and includes situationswhere a child moves out of a household or where other members move out.
RESULTS
Table 1presents the relationship of each household member to each child in each wave acrossall waves for all children less than age 18 and by race-ethnicity and householdereducation. Figure 1 presents household instability by age. The top linerepresents the rate of household change, including both composition and addresschanges. Generally, instability is greatest at younger ages.
Table 2 showsthe cumulative number of household changes experienced by a child’s 16thbirthday. Our estimates of household instability are much higher than previousestimates that focus on instability due to maternal relationship formation anddissolution. Focusing on household changes where a parent moved into or out ofthe household, we get estimates much more similar to previous research.
Table 3,which describes the relationships of people entering and leaving the child’shousehold to the child, confirms this. Only 16.6 percent of the people enteringor leaving a child’s household are parents, while siblings are over a quarter.Other adults, including aunts, uncles, cousins as well as non-relatives andindividuals with inconsistent relationships to the child, are a third of thepeople entering and leaving.
Table 1. Percent Distribution of Relationships of Household members to Children, household size, percentage of children with someone other than a parent or sibling in the household. |
| |||||||||||
Relationship | Total | By Race-Ethnicity |
| By Householder Education |
| |||||||
|
| Non-Hispanic White | Black | Asian | Non-Hispanic Other | Hispanic |
| Less than High School | High School Diploma | Some College | College Degree |
|
Parent | 44.9 | 50.3 | 35.3 | 49.4 | 42.1 | 39.1 | 33.3 | 41.3 | 45.3 | 54.2 |
| |
Sibling | 39.3 | 39.3 | 40.8 | 35.0 | 36.7 | 39.6 | 41.4 | 38.2 | 39.8 | 38.4 |
| |
Other | 11.1 | 6.9 | 18.1 | 10.2 | 15.5 | 14.9 | 17.3 | 14.2 | 10.8 | 5.1 |
| |
Unknown | 4.8 | 3.5 | 5.8 | 5.4 | 5.7 | 6.5 | 8.0 | 6.3 | 4.1 | 2.3 |
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Average # HH members (other than child) | 3.6 | 3.5 | 3.5 | 3.8 | 3.6 | 4.2 |
| 4.4 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 3.4 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
% Children Living w/ someone not a parent or sibling | 22.7 | 16.5 | 32.5 | 25.5 | 30.8 | 30.8 |
| 36.1 | 28.8 | 21.8 | 11.8 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
N Children | 37,067 | 20,634 | 5,801 | 1,444 | 2,103 | 7,085 |
| 5,621 | 8,910 | 13,209 | 9,327 |
|
N Child-Waves | 312,316 | 177,026 | 45,722 | 12,200 | 16,608 | 60,760 |
| 43,199 | 73,713 | 109,650 | 85,754 |
|
Table 2. Cumulative number of Household Changes by Age 15 by Race-Ethnicity and by Householder Education | |||||||||||
By Race-Ethnicity | By Householder Education | ||||||||||
| Total | Non-Hispanic White | Black | Asian | Other (multi-racial) | Hispanic |
| Less than High School | High School | Some College | College Grad |
All Changes | 6.1 | 5.2 | 7.8 | 4.4 | 7.9 | 6.9 |
| 7.8 | 7.0 | 6.6 | 3.8 |
Address Changes | 3.1 | 2.7 | 4.4 | 2.3 | 3.9 | 3.3 | 5.7 | 3.6 | 3.6 | 1.9 | |
Composition Changes | 4.2 | 3.6 | 5.2 | 2.6 | 5.8 | 4.9 |
| 5.7 | 5.0 | 4.5 | 2.5 |
% Comp | 69.4 | 69.1 | 67.3 | 60.5 | 74.1 | 71.7 | 73.1 | 71.5 | 68.5 | 65.2 | |
Parental Changes | 1.2 | 1.1 | 1.5 | 0.6 | 1.3 | 1.2 | 0.9 | 1.1 | 1.1 | 0.5 | |
% Parental | 28.5 | 31.7 | 28.6 | 22.3 | 22.5 | 24.7 |
| 16.1 | 21.8 | 23.4 | 19.8 |
Table 3. Relationships of People entering/leaving child''s household to Child | |||||||||||
Relationship | Total | By Race-Ethnicity |
|
|
| By Householder Education | |||||
NHWhite | Black | Asian | Other | Hispanic |
| <HS | HS | Some College | College+ | ||
Parent | 16.6 | 20.3 | 14.0 | 11.6 | 14.4 | 13.1 | 11.7 | 16.6 | 18.9 | 18.1 | |
Sibling | 27.3 | 31.8 | 24.4 | 28.9 | 21.3 | 23.3 | 24.1 | 24.3 | 27.8 | 37.2 | |
Grandparent | 10.6 | 10.1 | 12.0 | 12.4 | 12.0 | 9.9 | 9.6 | 11.9 | 10.8 | 9.1 | |
Other Adult | 33.7 | 28.7 | 36.0 | 36.6 | 36.6 | 39.7 | 39.2 | 35.0 | 31.5 | 28.3 | |
Other Child | 11.7 | 9.1 | 13.5 | 10.6 | 15.8 | 14.0 |
| 15.4 | 12.1 | 11.0 | 7.3 |
CONCLUSION
Childrenoften live with non-nuclear kin; over one in five children live with people whoare neither a parent nor a sibling. Our analyses also show that typical measuresof instability miss most household instability. We determine that childrenexperience an average of 6.1 household transitions before reaching age 16. Wealso find that household complexity and instability are much greater forrace-ethnic minorities and for children in educationally disadvantagedhouseholds.
Presented in Session 1106: Families and Households