Cohabitation and the measurement of child poverty

We use 1990 U.S. Census of Population data to calculate what poverty rates would have been if cohabiters were treated in the same manner as married co uples. We find that the official treatment of cohabiting partners as separa te family units overstated the extent of poverty in 1989 among all children by about three percent. Only about 11 percent of the observed rise in chil d poverty between 1969 and 1989 would be eliminated if the Census Bureau ma de this change in its definition of the family. We estimate a logistic regr ession model of the likelihood that poor, cohabiting families with children would be reclassified as non-poor if the cohabiter's income were included in family income. We find that many of these families would remain poor des pite this change in measurement procedure because many cohabiters have low annual earnings or no earnings at all.