Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995 TAG: 9501120060
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The report - though based on 1990 census data collected in 335 U.S. metropolitan areas - "is a good estimate as of right now," said Jeanne Woodward, a bureau statistician. The report concluded that children living with only one parent was a common occurrence in the United States.
"One out of four of the nation's metro households with [their] own children under 18 was maintained by a single parent in 1990," said Timothy Grall, survey statistician for the Census Bureau. "And more than eight in 10 one-parent families living in metropolitan areas were maintained by women."
Of Roanoke's 26,768 family households, 24.2 percent were headed by single parents, according to the report. Of those 6,472 families, 5,466 were maintained by mothers and 1,006 by fathers.
In the 1990 census year, there were more than 7million single-parent families in the United States. That number has since grown. The bureau's Current Population Survey put the 1993 total at 8.5million.
The Census Bureau defined a single-parent family as consisting of a parent who maintains a household that includes one or more of his or her own children under the age of 18.
Roanoke ranked 153rd of the 335 metropolitan areas included in the report in percentage of one-parent families. Only one Virginia metropolitan area included in the report ranked lower - Charlottesville. It ranked 218th with 22.5 percent of family households headed by single parents.
Leading the state was the Richmond/Petersburg area, with 26.8 percent of 109,476 households headed by single parents. It was ranked 52nd.
Danville, though ranked 54th, tied with Richmond/Petersburg in percentage of single-parent households. The Norfolk/Virginia Beach/Newport News area ranked 119th with 24.8 percent of households headed by single parents.
Nationwide, New York City topped the list with 36 percent of family households headed by single parents. The lowest-ranked area in the nation was one bordering that city - Nassau-Suffolk, N.Y., with 15 percent.
The data are used by the Census Bureau to examine the characteristics of housing in American metropolitan areas, Woodward said. Among the bureau's findings:
Single-parent families most commonly were found in central cities.
Most single parents were women who rented their homes.
Single-parent renters had it tough. They were more likely than their counterparts who owned their homes to be unemployed, to lack a motor vehicle and telephone and to live in crowded conditions.
Single parents faced extreme housing cost burdens.
Fifty-five percent of black families with children had only one parent. That compared with 39 percent of American Indian families, 32 percent of families categorized as "other," 30 percent of families of Hispanic origin, 19 percent of white families and 14 percent of Asian families.
by CNB