The relatively slow growth of child support populations in the United States over the next ten years can be attributed to several underlying trends in the population of the United States. Those trends include the aging of the nation’s population, a slight decline in the high rates of divorce, and the leveling off of nonmarital childbearing at a historically high level.

One of the central features of the population of the United States over the past fifty years has been the creation and aging of the baby boom generation. Defined as the cohort of people born between 1946 and 1964, baby boomers comprised more than one-fourth of the U.S. population in 1998. The implications of the aging of the baby boom are well known for the social security system, but their aging also has implications for the child support populations of the country. Baby boomers are increasingly becoming “empty nesters,” older adults whose children have moved out of the home. In 1988, baby boomers were between the ages of 24 and 42, prime ages for parenthood. By 2009, baby boomers will be between the ages of 45 and 63, and many will no longer have children living at home. Figure 4.1 and Figure 4.2 illustrate the aging of the baby boom. The number of people between the ages of 30 and 44 will decline by almost 10 percent between 1998 and 2009.

The aging of the baby boom matters for child support populations because of the age pattern of parenthood. In particular, adults between the ages of 30 and 39 are those most likely to be custodial parents (see Figure 4.3). As baby boomers age out of these

prime custodial (and noncustodial) parent age groups, all else equal the number of custodial parents would decline. The aging of the baby boom is the single most important factor in the slowing in the rate of increase of child support populations. Indeed, precisely because of the aging of the baby boom, the Census Bureau projects that the number of children in the United States will change very little over the next ten years. As noted earlier in this report, the number of children in the United States is projected to increase only 3 percent between 1998 and 2009.

Divorce rates are another important determinant of child support populations. As shown in Figure 4.4, divorce rates, after almost tripling from 1960 to 1980, have actually declined. From its peak in 1979 of 22.8 divorces per 1,000 married women, the divorce rate dropped 17 percent to 19.5 divorces per 1,000 married women in 1996. Still, the annual number of divorces remains at or near record levels, and divorce rates are still very high by long-term standards. The high divorce rate leads to increases in the child support population, though the increases are not as great as they would have been had divorce rates continued to increase into the twenty-first century. About 1.2 million divorces occur each year, involving approximately 1 million children. In 1996, we estimate that 15 out of every 1,000 children will be involved in a divorce, compared to 19 per 1,000 in 1981 and only 6 per 1000 in 1951. By the age of 18, over 20 percent of American children will experience the divorce of their parents.

Nonmarital childbearing also plays a role in determining child support populations. As shown in Figure 4.5, after dramatic increases from the 1970s to the early 1990s, nonmarital childbearing has leveled off in recent years. Still, the levels of nonmarital births, nonmarital birth rates, and the proportion of all births that are to unmarried mothers are at or near record levels.

By the late 1990s, about one in every three births in the United States was to an unmarried mother (compared to only one in every ten births in 1970). During the early part of the 1990s, the rate of nonmarital childbearing was fairly stable, but the proportion of births to unmarried women continued to increase (because marital fertility declined during this period). A continuation of these high levels of nonmarital childbearing will lead to increases in the child support population of the United States, although the increases are not as large as they would have been had the levels continued to rise throughout the 1990s and into the first decade of the twenty-first century. In addition, past increases in nonmarital fertility have not yet worked themselves through the entire child support population. A simple example illustrates this point: in 1998, less than 20 percent of 17-year-old children were born to unmarried mothers, by 2009 almost one-third of 17-year-olds will have been born to unmarried mothers. Thus, the proportion of children born to unmarried mothers will continue to rise, even as nonmarital fertility rates remain relatively constant.

Trends in living arrangements have obvious and direct implications for child support. Increases in single-parent families lead to increases in support eligibility. The number of two-parent families with children less than 18 years of age has changed very little over the past ten years in the United States, increasing only 3 percent. One-parent families grew by 28 percent during this same time period, and now comprise one-third of all families with children. Much of the growth in one-parent families has been fueled by increases in families headed by single fathers. The number of single-parent father families almost doubled in size from 1988 to 1998, increasing from 1.2 million to 2.1 million. Thus, the trends discussed earlier for child support populations reflect broader societal changes in the make-up and constitution of families in the United States.

Economically, families tended to be slightly better off in 1998 than in 1988. In 1988, 11.6 percent of all Americans living in families lived in poverty, compared to 11.2 percent in 1998. Both 1988 and 1998 were years with strong national economies. The intervening recession years saw poverty rates for people in families peak at 13.6 percent in 1993. Poverty rates for people living in married couple families are lower than for people who live in non-family households.^[10] People in non-family households, a growing share of the child support population, have poverty rates almost twice as high as those in family households (20.8 percent versus 11.2 percent in 1998).

While poverty rates have declined only slightly, the number of families receiving public assistance has fallen dramatically. The number of families in the United States receiving welfare (Aid to Families with Dependent Children in 1988, and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families in 1998) declined from 3.8 million to 3.2 million between 1988 and 1998. This 17 percent decline is almost identical to the 18 percent decline in the number of custodial parents receiving public assistance. Estimates from the Department of Health and Human Services indicate an incredible 20 percent decline in the number of families receiving welfare in 1999, as compared to just one year earlier. The strong economy and especially welfare reform have led to these remarkable declines. These declines in welfare caseloads suggest that child support is becoming an increasingly important potential source of income for poor families.