PARENTAL COHABITATION AND CHILDRENS ECONOMIC WELL-BEING

The rise in children's experience in single-parent families is well do cumented. However, it remains unknown whether their unmarried parents are living alone or coresiding with unmarried partners. Perhaps more i mportantly it is unknown how the economic contributions of parent's co habiting partners influence the economic well-being of children. Using data from the recently released 1990 decennial census PUMS, we provid e national estimates of the percentage and socioeconomic characteristi cs of U.S. children living in cohabiting-couple families. Our results reveal that 2.2 million children (3.5%) reside in cohabiting-couple fa milies and that racial differences are substantial. Roughly 1 in 7 chi ldren in unmarried-parent families also live with their parent's unmar ried part ner. Although these children have two potential caretakers a nd economic providers, our results indicate that parental resources fa ll short of their counterparts in married-couple families. A cohabitin g partner's economic contribution results in a 29% reduction in the pr oportion of children in cohabiting-couple families living In poverty, but still they fare poorly in comparison with children in married-coup le families.