Suzanne Macartney

Young Hispanic Children in the 21st Century

This article presents a demographic portrait of young Hispanic children compared to young non-Hispanic Whites. New results from Census 2000 describe family and economic circumstances of children aged 08, as well as pre-K/nursery school and kindergarten enrollment for the United States, and for the 9 states with the largest number of young Hispanic children (Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, and Texas). Most results in this article are presented in Tables 1 and 2, and these results along with many additional topics are available at, the website of the Center for Social and Demographic Analysis, University at Albany, State University of New York: www.albany.edu/CSDA/children. We are indebted to Jessica Singer for research assistance and Hui-Shien Tsao for computer assistance. We also wish to thank the National Task Force on Early Childhood Education for Hispanics and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation for supporting research that provided a basis for this analysis, as well as the Russell Sage Foundation and the Population Reference Bureau.

Measuring Social Disparities via the CWI: Race-Ethnicity, Income, and Immigrant Status

The FCD Child Well-Being Index (CWI) provides a national composite measure for monitoring change in the quality of life of America’s children by indicating the average amount of change that children experience between a baseline year and a subsequent year (Land et al. 2001; Land 2005a, b). The method also has been implemented for Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics to assess trends for specific groups (Land et al. 2001). This chapter uses a modified approach to assess disparities across groups beginning with a baseline year and subsequent trends that reflect the extent to which these disparities narrow or expand through time (Hernandez and Macartney 2008). Results are presented comparing Whites, Blacks, and Hispanics for 1985–2004, comparing five income groups across the more recent years of 1985–2008, and comparing children in immigrant and native-born families at a point in time for 2007–2010. Future research will update results for race-ethnic and income groups and also assess disparity trends for immigrant status groups.

Poverty and human resources for children in the United States and selected rich countries

Children must rely on adults to provide the economic and human resources essential to assure their well-being and development, because it is the adults in their families, communities, and the halls of government who determine the nature and magnitude of resources that reach children (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Haveman & Wolfe, 1994). In view of this dependence of children on adults, this chapter has three main goals. The first is to portray the extent to which children in the United States and other selected rich countries experience limited access to economic resources, compared to the adults in each country. The second is to focus on key family circumstances of children which reflect human resources available in the home and which influence the level of economic resources that parents have available to provide for their children. The third is to draw attention to differences among the race, ethnic, and immigrant groups that are leading the demographic transformation of rich countries around the world.