Research Catalog
America's children : resources from family, government, and the economy
- Title
- America's children : resources from family, government, and the economy / Donald J. Hernandez, with David E. Myers.
- Author
- Hernandez, Donald J. (Donald James), 1948-
- Publication
- New York : Russell Sage Foundation, ©1993.
Items in the Library & Off-site
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1 Item
| Status | Format | Access | Call Number | Item Location |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Text | Use in library | HQ792.U5 H47 1993 | Off-site |
Details
- Additional Authors
- Myers, David E.
- Description
- xxii, 482 pages : illustrations; 25 cm.
- Summary
- 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 have earned low national priority and have been dependent on inconsistent state and local management. Drawing upon census and survey data from 1940 to 1990, 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, child care, 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 percent 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.
- Series Statement
- The Population of the United States in the 1980s
- Uniform Title
- Population of the United States in the 1980s.
- Subject
- Note
- "For the National Committee for Research on the 1980 Census."
- Bibliography (note)
- Includes bibliographical references (p. 449-459) and indexes.
- Contents
- Resources for children : introduction and overview -- The family-size revolution : from many to few siblings -- The changing mix of parents and grandparents in childhood homes -- Parents' work and the family economy twice transformed -- Two child-care revolutions -- Parents' education, other family origins, and the American dream -- Children of poverty and luxury -- The working poor, welfare dependence, and mother-only families -- Family income sources, family size, and childhood poverty -- Fathers' incomes, mothers' incomes, and mother-only families -- Resources for children past, present, and future.
- ISBN
- 0871543818
- 9780871543813
- 0871543826
- 9780871543820
- LCCN
- 92009368
- OCLC
- ocm25507877
- 25507877
- SCSB-8791120
- Owning Institutions
- Princeton University Library