Profiles of Children of the Householder
Race, Ethnicity, and Nativity CharacteristicsCensus 2000 allowed respondents to choose more than one race. With the exception of the Two or more races group, all race groups discussed in this report refer to people who indicated only one racial identity among the six major categories: White, Black or African American, American Indian or Alaska Native, Asian, Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, and Some other race.
The use of the single-race population in this report does not imply that it is the preferred method of presenting or analyzing data. The Census Bureau uses a variety of approaches.
In 2000, White (and no other race), not Hispanic children made up the majority of all categories of children of householders under 18: about 58 percent of adopted children, 64 percent of biological children, and 69 percent of stepchildren (see
Table 4). A higher percentage of adopted children under 18 were Black or African American (16 percent) than the percentage of biological children (13 percent) and the percentage of stepchildren (12 percent).
This higher percentage may be due in part to the fact that the percentage of children in the child welfare system who are Black is higher than the percentage of children in the overall population who are Black,
and may also reflect a higher number of informal adoptions in African American communities. Although the percentage of children under 18 who were American Indian and Alaska Native is small, a higher percentage of adopted children were American Indian and Alaska Native (1.6 percent) than the percentage of biological (1.0 percent) or stepchildren (1.2 percent) who are American Indian or Alaska Native, which may be related to informal adoptions in American Indian and Alaska Native communities.
The percentage of adopted children under 18 who were Asian (7.4 percent) is higher than the percentage of biological (3.5 percent) and stepchildren (1.2 percent) who were Asian. This is due largely to the fact that nearly half (48 percent) of all foreign-born adopted children were born in Asian countries. A slightly lower percentage of adopted children than stepchildren or biological children under 18 were Hispanic (14 percent compared with 15 percent and 16 percent, respectively).
Tables 3 and
4 also show the number and percentage of children of the householder who were foreign born and the number who spoke English "very well" among those 5 to 17 years who spoke a language other than English at home. About 4 percent of children under 18 who were stepchildren or biological children in 2000 were foreign born.
The corresponding percentage was considerably higher for adopted children - 11 percent for boys and 14 percent for girls was heavily influenced by the number of foreign-born adopted children who were Asian, because the majority of adopted Asian children were girls.
While most foreign-born biological and stepchildren under age 18 (88 percent and 84 percent, respectively) spoke a language other than English at home, this was not the case for foreign-born adopted children. Thirty percent of foreign-born adopted girls and 32 percent of foreign-born adopted boys under 18 spoke a language other than English at home. Many of the foreign-born adopted children were likely adopted at a young age, before they could speak any language fluently, and since their parents often speak only English, they are more likely to do so as well. Of those who spoke a language other than English, the proportion who spoke English "very well" was over half for all children, at about 54 percent.
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For further information on each of the six major race groups and the Two or more races population, see reports from the Census 2000 Brief series (C2KBR/01), available on the Census 2000 Web site at
www.census.gov/population/www/cen2000/briefs.html.
This report draws heavily on Summary File 3, a Census 2000 product that can accessed through American FactFinder, available from the Census Bureau's Web site,
www.census.gov. Information on people who reported more than one race, such as "White
and American Indian and Alaska Native" or "Asian
and Black or African American" can be found in Summary File 4, also available through American FactFinder. About 2.6 percent of people reported more than one race.
Hereafter, this report uses the term Black to refer to people who are Black or African American, the term Pacific Islander to refer to people who are Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander, and the term Hispanic to refer to people who are Hispanic or Latino.
National Adoption Center Web site at
www.adoptuskids.org. The National Adoption Center is a service of the Children's Bureau, of the Administration for Children and Families, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
20 Because Hispanics may be of any race, data in this report for Hispanics overlap with data for racial groups. Based on Census 2000 sample data, the proportion Hispanic was 8.0 percent for the White alone population, 2.0 percent for the Black alone population, 14.6 percent for the American Indian and Alaska Native alone population, 1.0 percent for the Asian alone population, 9.5 percent for the Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander alone population, 97.1 for the Some other race alone population, and 31.1 percent for the Two or more races population.
21 These percentages, 4.0 percent for stepchildren and 3.9 percent for biological children, differ statistically but not substantively.
Credits: CENSR-6
by Rose M. Kreider
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