Household Composition by Types of Children in Households

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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.

How many households have adopted and what combination of children live in households? Of the 45.5 million households in 2000 that contained householders' children of any age, most (89 percent) contained biological children only; about 3 percent of these households contained stepchildren only; and another 4 percent contained both biological and stepchildren (see Table 8). Another 2 percent contained only adopted children of the householder and an additional 2 percent contained both adopted and biological children.³⁸ Only 0.1 percent of all households with children of the householder included biological children, adopted children, and stepchildren.

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Among the 1.7 million households containing adopted children of the householder, 82 percent had just one adopted child, while 15 percent had two adopted children. Just 3 percent of these households had three or more adopted children. In addition, 166,000 households with an adopted child of the householder were three-generation households, including either a householder who had both a parent or parent-in-law and an adopted child, or a householder who had both an adopted child and a grandchild in the same household.

Table 8 shows the number of households with children of the householder that were composed of people of different races or were made up of both Hispanics and non-Hispanics. In the vast majority of these households (90 percent), all members were of the same race. Of the 1.7 million households with adopted children, about 308,000 (18 percent) contained members of different races. The adoption of foreign-born children by U.S. residents played a large role in creating these households. Of the 43.8 million households, which did not contain adopted children, 4.1 million (9 percent) included people of different race groups. Nearly all households with children of the householder were composed of either all Hispanic, or all non-Hispanic members: 95 percent; 142,000 households with adopted children contained both Hispanic and non-Hispanic people, representing 8 percent of all households with adopted children.

³⁸ The difference between the percentage of households that contain adopted children only and the percentage of households that contain adopted and biological children is not statistically significant.

Credits: CENSR-6
by Rose M. Kreider

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