America's Children offers a valuable overview of the dramatic transformations in American childhood over the past fifty years, a period of historic shifts that reduced the human and material resources available to our children. Alarmingly, one fifth of all U.S. children now grow up in poverty, many are without health insurance, and about 30 percent never graduate from high school. Despite such conditions, economic, family, and educational programs for children earn low national priority and must depend on inconsistent state and local management. Drawing upon both historical and recent data, including census information from 1940 to 1980, Donald J. Hernandez provides a vivid portrait of children in America and puts forth a forceful case for overhauling our national child welfare policies. Hernandez shows how important revolutions in household composition and income, parental education and employment, childcare, and levels of poverty have affected children's well-being. As working wives and single mothers increasingly replace the traditional homemaker, children spend greater portions of time in educational and daycare facilities outside the home, and those with single mothers stand the greatest chance of being welfare dependent. Wider changes in society have created even greater stress for children in certain groups as they age: out-of-wedlock births are on the rise for white teenagers, half of all Hispanic youths never graduate high school, and violence accounts for nearly 90 per cent of all black teenage deaths. America's Children explores the interaction of many trends in children's lives and the fundamental social, demographic, and economic processes that lie at their core. The book concludes with a thoughtful analysis of the ability of families and government to provide for a new age of children, with emphasis on reducing racial inequities and providing greater public support for families, comparable to the family policies of other developed countries. As the traditional "Ozzie and Harriet" family recedes into collective memory, the importance of creating strong national policies for children is amplified, particularly in the areas of financial assistance, health insurance, education, and daycare. America's Children provides a compelling guide for reassessing the forces that shape our children and the resources available to safeguard their future. "In this conceptually creative, methodologically rigorous, and empirically rich book, Hernandez uses census and survey data to describe several quite profound changes that have characterized the life courses of America's children and their families over the last 50 to 150 years....this erudite book is destined to be a classic." —Richard M. Lerner, Contemporary Psychology "America's Children goes a long way toward informing the debate on the causes of increasing poverty, and it challenges some widely held misperceptions....its study of resources available to children (and their families) lays a valuable foundation for surveying trends in family structure, education, and income sources....Anyone interested in the changing lives of children should read it; anyone interested in understanding the causes and patterns of poverty, and in designing a better welfare system, must read it." —Ellen B. Magenheim, Journal of Policy Analysis and Management A Volume in the Russell Sage Foundation Census Series

In 1998, the Foundation for Child Development (FCD) provided Kenneth Land a grant to explore the feasibility of producing the first national composite index of the status of American children that would chart changes in their well-being over time. Important questions needed to be answered: was it possible to trace trends in child and youth well-being over several decades? Could such an index provide a way of determining whether the United States was making progress in improving its children’s lives? The Index of Child and Youth Well-Being (CWI) was born from these questions. Viewing the CWI trends from 1975 to present, there is evidence that the well-being of American children lags behind other Western nations. As conditions change, it is clear that the index is an evolving and rich enterprise. This volume attests to that evolution, and what the CWI promises for understanding the progress – or lack of progress – in enhancing the life prospects of all American children. ​

This book is open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 IGO license. The Early Years analyzes the development of Latin American and Caribbean children and makes a compelling case for government intervention in what is instinctively a family affair. Spending on effective programs for young children is an investment that, if done well, will have very high returns, while failure to implement such programs will lower the returns on the hefty investments being made in primary, secondary, and higher education. Policies for young children belong at the core of a country's development agenda, alongside policies to develop infrastructure and strengthen institutions. However, if the services provided (or funded) by governments are to benefit children, they must be substantially better than what is currently being delivered in the region. This book offers suggestions for improving public policy in this critical area.

The Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics develops priorities for collecting data on children and youth, improve the reporting and dissemination of information on the status of children to the policy community and the general public, and produce more complete data on children at the State and local levels. This report presents key indicators grouped in seven sections: family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and safety, behavior, education, and health. In addition, this year's report includes a new indicator on teen immunizations that will allow the tracking of newly recommended adolescent vaccines. Extensive charts, tables and graphs. A print on demand report.

This report presents nationwide data on the well-being of America's children. The statistical report is based on indicators of child well-being such as family income and mortality rates. The first part of the report, "Population and Family Characteristics," presents data that illustrate the changes that have taken place during the past few decades in six key demographic measures, including children as a proportion of the U.S. population, family structure, and difficulty speaking English. The second part of the report, "Indicators of Children's Well-Being," presents data on 26 key indicators in the following areas: (1) Economic Security, including family income, secure parental employment, housing, and access to health care; (2) Health, including activity limitation, infant and child mortality rates, and immunization rates; (3) Behavior and Social Environment, including substance abuse, and youth victims and perpetrators of serious violent crimes; (4) Education, including family reading to young children, and youth neither enrolled in school nor working; and (5) Special Features, which covers children who have difficulty performing everyday activities. For each background measure in the report's first section and for each indicator in the second section, three types of information are presented: a short statement about why the measure or indicator is important to understanding the condition of children, figures showing important facts about trends or population groups for each indicator, and highlights with information on current status, recent trends, and important differences by population groups noted. Two appendices contain detailed tables of data and data source descriptions. Among the findings, the report notes that the percentage of children living with two parents has remained stable since 1996, but there are large differences across racial and ethnic groups. Although the poverty rate of children has remained about the same since 1980, shifts in the proportion of children living in families with high income and those living in extreme poverty reflect a growing income disparity among children. While the mortality rate for almost all groups of children continues to fall, it has fallen most dramatically among black children, ages 1 to 4; this rate, however, remains almost twice the rate for whites. The number of youth who were victims of violent crime has declined since 1993, as have the number of juveniles as perpetrators of violent crimes. Preschool enrollment has increased among black, non-Hispanic children, and among children living in poverty. (HTH)

Each year since 1997, the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics (Forum) has published "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being," a report that includes detailed information on the well-being of children and families. This Brief highlights selected indicators from the more detailed report, which were chosen because they are easy to understand; are based on substantial research connecting them to child wellbeing; vary across important areas of children's lives; are measured regularly so that they can be updated and show trends over time; and represent large segments of the population, rather than one particular group. The first section of the Brief, Population and Family Characteristics, describes the context in which children live (including aspects such as changes in children's family settings and living arrangements). The sections that follow highlight indicators of child well-being in four key areas: Economic Security, Health, Behavior and Social Environment, and Education. (Contains 11 figures and 19 footnotes.).