How are children identified in Census 2000?

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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.

Biological children, adopted children, and stepchildren are identified in Census 2000 by the answer to the question, "How is this person related to person 1?" Person 1 is always the householder: someone who owns or rents the home. The results shown in this report reflect only people who were identified as children of the householder and were living in the household at the time of the census, rather than all children currently living with their parents. For example, if a married couple lived in the household of one of their parents, their children would be reported as the grandchildren on the householder. Because of situations like this, Census 2000 data cannot provide a comprehensive count of all adopted children and stepchildren in the United States.³ At the same time, national-level data on adopted children and stepchildren are rare, and the large sample size of Census 2000 makes it the most complete data source on the characteristics of these children and their families and households. The Other Sources of Data section of this report describes several other sources of data on adoption and adopted children.

Because people may have different understandings of what constitutes and "adoptive" or "step" parent-child relationship, Census 2000 data include a variety of types of adoptive and step relationships. These data do not define whether an adoption was of a relative or a nonrelative, or whether the child was adopted through a public agency, a private agency, or independently. Because of this, we cannot distinguish among children who were adopted by their stepparents, children adopted by their biological grandparents or other relatives, and children adopted by other people to whom they are not biologically related.⁴ Since Census 2000 respondents selected from the relationship categories shown in Figure 1, people recorded as adopted children of the householder may not necessarily be legally adopted.

Informal adoptions are more common among some cultural groups than others, as people differ widely in the way they view family relationships and the process of adoption. For example, a qualitative study prepared for the U.S. Census Bureau found that informal adoption of biological grandchildren was common in Inupiaq communities in Alaska.⁵ Informal adoptions are also more common among Blacks and Hispanics.⁶

In a similar manner, in Census 2000, householders who listed stepchildren as living in their households may not always be married to the person who is the biological parent of the stepchild. Most of the 271,000 unmarried male householders who reported having stepchildren in their households also had a female unmarried partner (198,000). It seems unlikely that so many men would have the biological child of their former spouse living with them, and more likely that the "stepchild" is the biological child of the unmarried partner with whom they are currently living. Since the English language does not have a more precise word to describe this kind of relationship, some respondents may have decided to report their partner's child as their stepchild, even though they are not married to the child's biological parent.

³ It is estimated that Census 2000 may have identified only about two-thirds of all stepchildren living with at least one stepparent because of the manner in which the data were collected. For this reason, characteristics of the stepchildren shown in this report may not represent all stepchildren. See the Data Quality section of this report.
The text of this report discusses data for the United States, including the 50 stats and the District of Columbia. Data for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico are shown in Table 2 and Figure 3.

⁴ An estimate for 1992, made from court records, was that about 42 percent of all adoptions were by stepparents or a relative. See Victor Flango and Carol Flango. "How Many Children Were Adopted in 1992." Child Welfare. 1995, Vol. LXXIV, No. 5 (Sept.-Oct.), pp. 1018-1024. A 1996 survey of all 50 states and the District of Columbia conducted by the National Council for Adoption, estimated that 50 percent of domestic adoptions were by someone related to the child, including stepparents. Se Paul J. Placek. "National Adoption Data," Adoption Factbook III. National Council for Adoption: Washington, DC, 1999, pp. 24-68.

⁵ Amy Craver, "Complex Inupiaq Eskimo Households and Relationships in Two Northwest Alaska Rural Communities," Alaska Native Science Commission. University of Alaska, Anchorage, 2001.

⁶ See Christine A. Bachrach, Kathryn A. London, and Penelope L. Maza. "On the Path to Adoption: Adoption Seeking in the United States, 1998," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1991, Vol. 53, pp. 705-718l and Debra Kalmuss. "Adoption and Black Teenagers: The Viability of a Pregnancy Resolution Strategy," Journal of Marriage and the Family, 1992, Vol. 54, pp. 485-495; and Maria Suarez Hamm. "Latino Adoption Issues," Adoption Factbook III. National Council for Adoption: Washington, DC, 1999, pp. 257-260.

Credits: CENSR-6
by Rose M. Kreider

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