Children Experience Fewer and Fewer Employed Parents

In 1994, the U.S. began to record the percentage of families that include one member that is unemployed.  Certainly, plenty of factors influence these statistics.  How have changing roles of women, for instance, impacted these numbers?  Have there been significant enough changes in race relations to influence the figures?  Of course, the current economy affects the figures, too.  This year’s statistics suggest that the collapsed economy has had broad-reaching effects on American families, transforming the experience of growing up for American youth.

The recession helped create several records that no one wants to set.  In 2010, 12.4 percent of families included an unemployed person—its highest level since the data series began in 1994.  The proportion of families with an unemployed member in 2010 was up from 12.0 percent in 2009 and nearly double the 6.3 percent recorded in 2007.

Although the economy is supposedly improving, the data about employment in families suggests that family finances are getting increasingly worse.  Among families with an unemployed member in 2010, 67.7 percent also had an employed member, down from 68.6 percent in 2009 and 71.2 percent in 2007.  Among married-couple families with an unemployed member in 2010, 79.4 percent contained at least one employed member.  The share of married-couple families where both parents worked fell to 58.1 percent in 2010 from 58.9 percent in 2009.