The state of the State

Children: building blocks or stumbling blocks?

By F. MARK SIEBERT

POVERTY adversely affects the children of the state, and under current conditions the situation is likely to worsen. This seems the inescapable conclusion to be drawn from a recent study — not on poverty but on "selected social indicators of children's lives" in Illinois. The State of the Child: 1985 is the report of the Chapin Hall Center for Children of the University of Chicago.

The center's first report appeared in 1980, so that the statistical comparisons presented in this second report reveal trends for a five-year period. The report also identifies some policy changes during the intervening period at federal and state levels. Its purpose is to provide material for study and public discussion rather than to recommend specific solutions to problems. A concerned reader will immediately realize that problems abound.

When socioeconomic theory is tested against the realities depicted here, the status of Illinois children in 1985 presents a paradox. The children of the postwar baby boom should now be reaching maturity. Even if their offspring produce a smaller, echoing boom the proportion of children in the population should be smaller than it has been. As the report observes, "The logic of Malthusian economics suggests that fewer child dependents ought to translate into improved societal provision for children and youth in their families, schools, neighborhoods, and in the marketplace." Here as elsewhere in the modern world, however, economic theory has yielded inaccurate predictions: "The paradox is that according to key indicators of child well-being, the collective condition of children and youth in our society has worsened." Even more surprising is the report's conclusion about the future availability of children's health care and welfare: "Political competition for scarce societal resources raises the possibility that fewer numbers of children will actually work to the detriment of children as a whole."

The State of the Child: 1985 furnishes information in almost every conceivable subject area relating to child life, with great statistical and interpretive detail, for the state of Illinois. Not only in the chapters on health and welfare, but throughout the report a general conclusion seems unavoidable: The proportion of children in the total population of the state has in fact decreased, but demographic shifts independent of the age factor tend to negate the supposed advantages of the population change.

The decreasing birthrate occurs largely among older, more affluent, married white parents. Blacks have also experienced a decreasing birthrate over the period examined, but it is still larger than the white birthrate. Hispanics represent the other significant group in the study and are "one of the fastest growing social groups in our society." As a consequence, "each year non-white children become a larger proportion of the total child population." For a number of reasons, these children are likely to be in families below the poverty level.

The prevalence of single-parent families among blacks seems to be one of the most significant factors affecting the well-being of children. Across the whole population of Illinois the number of such families has increased fourfold since 1960, but it is estimated that 75 percent of all black children, as opposed to 33 percent of white children, will spend some portion of their childhood years in single-parent families. Black, female heads of households, furthermore, are likely to be unmarried: "An estimated 44 percent of all black children in 1980 lived in families where the mother was unmarried. This compares to ten percent of all white children. Both percentages are double the respective levels in 1960" (emphasis added). This trend is probably increasing.

The report examines an array of conditions affecting the quality of child life. In almost all categories the situation of minority children is worse than that of white children, but it is, in many instances, most deplorable for children in black, single-parent families. They are concentrated in metropolitan Chicago, with 47 percent of the black children there living in single parent families. Regardless of family structure, nearly half of the state's poor children are either black or Hispanic Chicago-dwellers, even though they constitute only 19 percent of the state's youth population. To put it simply, it's terrible to be a poor child, but it is worst to be the child of an unmarried black mother living in Chicago, and the situation is deteriorating.

. . . nearly half of the state's poor children
are either black or Hispanic Chicago-dwellers, even though
they constitute only 19 percent of the state's youth

The chapter on "Children's Family Life" reveals the difficulties that an unmarried black mother faces in providing for her family. It is harder for her to find a job. The early age of motherhood and accompanying lack of education account in part for this situation, but even employed black mothers experience a greater degree of poverty than do white working mothers with similar education.

4/May 1986/Illinois Issues

A factor affecting both blacks and whites, but perhaps bearing more heavily upon unmarried black mothers, is the heavy dependence of working mothers with young children upon day care. Publicly subsidized programs increased more than tenfold from 1970 to 1984, and additional growth is planned. Unfortunately the need has grown at a faster rate. If the eligibility standards of 1980 still prevailed, there would be six children for every available day-care slot, and the recent expansion of state day-care programs has not filled that gap. Additionally, fewer families are eligible since eligibility is tied to receipt of welfare, which is now harder for some families to obtain. "Because the pace of inflation in the past decade has greatly outdistanced adjustments made by the State to income maximums on welfare eligibility, most jobs taken by welfare recipients immediately push them above the maximum thereby disqualifying their families for public assistance. In the early 1970s. . . more recipients were able to combine work and welfare."

The unmarried black mother obviously faces a twofold problem if she takes a job: she will lose her welfare payments and her eligibility for public day care, thus having to make an inadequate income stretch even farther.

Poverty, particularly that of the children of unmarried black mothers, seems to be the core of the problem. The effects stretch from housing (poor children live in bad housing; families of unmarried black mothers live in the worst) to the condition of playgrounds and the inadequacy of libraries. If one were to try to predict results of child poverty there is one surprise: About the only area covered by the report in which black youth are statistically better off than their white counterparts is in the rate of attempted suicide.

The drying up of federal funds is, of course, partly responsible for the deteriorating situation of children. Holes seem to be spreading in the safety net. In recent months the General Assembly has thrice tried to compensate for the deficiency by bringing welfare levels back up to the existing percentage of the established poverty level, which has risen with inflation, but Gov. James R. Thompson vetoed each measure. Generally characterized as "increases" in welfare by the press, these were simply measures that would keep the condition of the poor from getting worse. Obviously, children will be the population group most seriously affected. For the state there emerge profound questions about the best way to build Illinois. As a clergyman I knew once remarked: "You can't build with stumbling blocks!"

May 1986/Illinois Issues/5