Profile of the Householders of Adopted Children and Stepchildren

This is an html transcription of the original Special Report document, authored by Rose M. Kreider, which can be found on the Census Bureau Web site in .pdf format at www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/censr-6.pdf.

Race and Hispanic Origin of the Householder

While the previous sections of this report have examined the characteristics of adopted and stepchildren, the following sections present estimates of the numbers of such children by the characteristics of the householder and the type of household in which the children lived. Table 6 shows that there was less variation by type of relationship in the race and Hispanic origin of the householder than there was in the race and origin of the children themselves. The percentage of children under 18 who lived with a non-Hispanic White householder was substantively the same for both adopted (72 percent) and stepchildren (72 percent), and somewhat lower for biological children (65 percent). The range in the percentages of children under 18 who lived with a Black householder was relatively small: 13 percent of biological and stepchildren, compared with 15 percent of adopted children. A higher percentage of biological children (4 percent) than adopted children (2 percent) and stepchildren (1 percent) lived with an Asian householder. This difference may be due in part to the fact that Asians are less likely to divorce and so would not be as likely to remarry and have stepchildren.³⁰

Table 6 also shows the percentage of children under 18 who differed in race or Hispanic origin from the householder: 17 percent for those under 18, and 11 percent for for those 18 and over. About 11 percent of stepchildren under 18, and 10 percent of those 18 and over were of different races than the householder, compared with 7 percent and 5 percent of biological children under 18 years and 18 and over, respectively.³¹

About the same percentage of adopted and stepchildren under 18 years were Hispanic while the householder was not, or vice versa (7 percent). The corresponding percentage for biological children was lower, 2 percent. Second and later marriages are more likely to involve spouses of different race and Hispanic origin,³² so it is not surprising that a higher percentage of stepchildren than biological children were of a different race or Hispanic origin than their householder parent.

³⁰ Rose M. Kreider and Jason M. Fields. Number, Timing, and Duration of Marriages and Divorces: Fall 1996. Current Population Reports, P70-80. U.S. Census Bureau, Washington, DC, 2002.

³¹ Biological children may differ in race from the householder under this classification method if their parents are of two different races, and the child is reported as being one race. Also, if the child has one parent who is White and one parent who is Black, the child may be reported as White and Black, in which case they would be included in the "Two or more races" category, and thus differ from the householder. Additionally, all those in the "Two or more races" category are automatically included in the "child is different race than householder" category.

³² Belinda M. Tucker and Claudia Mitchell-Kernan. "New Trends in Black American Interracial Marriage: The Social Structural Context," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1990, Vol. 52, pp. 209-218.

Credits: CENSR-6
by Rose M. Kreider

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