The Second Annual Index of Family Belonging and Rejection

By Anna Dorminey, Staff

Did you miss the release of our Second Annual Index of Family Belonging and Rejection? You can read it here and watch the webcast of the event here!

An excerpt from the Index’s introduction:

The Index of Family Belonging was 45.8 percent with a corresponding Family Rejection score of 54.2 percent for the United States for the year 2009. The action of parents determines the belonging or rejection score: whether they marry and belong to each other, or they reject one another through divorce or otherwise. Rejection leaves children without married parents committed to one another and to the intact family in which the child was to be brought up.

Index Highlights:

· Only 45.8% of American children reach the age of 17 with both their biological parents married (since before or around the time of their birth).

· The Index of Family Belonging is highest in the Northeast (49.6%) and lowest in the South (41.8%).

· Minnesota (57%) and Utah (56.5%) have the highest Index of Family Belonging values of all the states; Mississippi (34%) has the lowest. The District of Columbia had an abysmally low Family Belonging Index score of 18.6%.

· Family Belonging is strongest among Asians (65.8%) and weakest among Blacks (16.7%).

· Once differences across states in Family Belonging, adult educational attainment, foreign-born residents, and population density are taken into account, differences in state racial and ethnic composition are no longer significant in accounting for variations in child well-being outcomes (the exception being that the proportion of Hispanics in a state is very significant in determining the number of births to unmarried teenagers).

· While the effects of government spending on high school graduation rates are curvilinear and offer diminishing returns, family belonging is positively and significantly associated with high school graduation rates.

· Family belonging and child poverty are significantly, inversely related: States with high Index values have relatively low child poverty rates, and vice versa.

· There is a significant, inverse relationship between family belonging and the incidence of births to unmarried teenagers.