Jacob Segal
Child Welfare Improving, Study Says Teen Death, Youth Poverty Rates Drop to Lowest Levels in 20 Years
€ Measuring Children's Well-Being
Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, July 19, 2001; Page A03
The teen death rate and the rate of births to teenage mothers continued their declines in the late 1990s, dropping to the lowest point in two decades thanks to better economic opportunities and intensified community efforts, according to a report released today.
The report, "America's Children: Key National Indicators of Wellbeing 2001," found that the boom of the last decade has created a generation of children who are better off and better educated than their older brothers and sisters, but whose advantages could be swiftly eliminated by economic recession.
The annual compilation of child welfare statistics, gathered by the Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, shows that a dramatic change has occurred as single mothers went to work in large numbers during the 1990s. Their incomes returned children to equal or better living standards than before crack cocaine tore apart many communities in the 1980s. The number of children living in high-income homes has doubled since 1980, with nearly 3 in 10 now living in families with incomes four times the federal poverty level.
"What John Kennedy said was right: A rising tide lifts most, if not all, of the boats," said Douglas J. Besharov, a social policy expert at the American Enterprise Institute. "But there are also underlying seismic changes taking place: participation by American mothers in the labor force. "This happened before welfare reform," Besharov said. "There was a change in attitude by these women who did not want to be dependent on the government or men."
Despite the encouraging signs, the report shows that 10 million U.S. children still have no health insurance, there has been no decrease in binge drinking or illicit drug use among young people, and less than a quarter have healthful diets. Childhood asthma cases have risen by 20 percent in 10 years, although the cause of the increase is uncertain.
There are 70.4 million children younger than 18 in the United States. They account for 26 percent of the population. Sixty-four percent are white, 16 percent Hispanic and 15 percent black.
The report says that the poverty rate for children (defined as an annual income of less than $17,029 for a family of four in 1999) dropped from 18 percent in 1998 to 16 percent in 1999 -- the lowest figure for 20 years. The fall was most dramatic among single mothers, declining from 51 percent in 1980 to 42 percent in 1999.
Better access to contraception and community attention to the problem of teenage pregnancy led to decreased birth rates among teenage girls, which declined by one-fourth from 1991 to 1999. In 1999, the birth rate for girls ages 15 to 17 was 29 per 1,000 -- a 20-year low, with the decrease most dramatic among black teenagers. The report's authors also found a 25 percent drop in teen deaths, from 98 per 100,000 adolescents ages 15 to 19 in 1980 to 70.6 per 100,000 in 1998.
The greatest decline was seen in firearm deaths, which dropped by nearly 50 percent in the last five years, from 28 per 100,000 youths ages 15 to 19 in 1994 to 16 per 100,000 in 1998.
"In the 1980s and 1990s, there was a great deal of concern, particularly among African Americans, over firearms. The community felt, 'We're losing our kids,' " said Duane Alexander, director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. "They took concerted action, combined with stronger firearm control, and the benefits are showing."
Progress in education means that a third of high school graduates have a bachelor's degree or higher, compared with a quarter 20 years ago.
There was also good news on smoking, with the first tentative signs of a downward trend among 10th- and 12th-graders.
But the lack of progress over binge drinking and drug use worries child advocates. In 2000, about 30 percent of 12th-graders reported having at least five drinks in a single night during the previous two weeks -- about the same as the 1995 figure. Illicit drug use has remained constant since 1997, with 25 percent of high school seniors reporting drug use in the month before. Many analysts fear progress made during economic boom years could be quickly reversed by a downturn. "Yes, kids are better off," said Deborah Weinstein of the Children's Defense Fund. "But if, in the best of times, we have not been able to keep nearly one in six children from poverty (and one in three black children), then we need to be very fearful of what happens when the best times cease."
© 2001 The Washington Post Company