Children of Working Mothers.

Abstract

School and preschool age children whose mothers are part of our Nation's work force continue to be the object of public attention, especially as they are affected by such circumstances as the unemployment or low earnings of one or both parents, or the lack of adequate care during their working mother's absence. This article provides information on the number of children by the labor force activity of their parents, their race, type and size of families, and family income. The data, which were obtained from the annual survey of the marital and family characteristics of workers,1 are essential for persons concerned with policy planning and legislative proposals regarding the employment of mothers, child care facilities, and welfare administration. The number of children under age 18 in the population declined somewhat from 1970 to 1972, while the number of children with working mothers edged upward. (See table 1.) In March 1972, there were 65.3 million children under 18 years of age. Almost 26 million had mothers who were working or looking for work and 5.6 million of these children were preschoolers under age 6. Close to 800,000 of these preschoolers were in families headed by a woman. It is clear that the presence of children, including very young children, is no longer considered a bar to employment by many women. Although most children were living with both parents in March 1972, the number in two-parent families (56.6 million) was 1.8 million lower than in 1970 while the number in families headed by women (7.9 million) was 1.2 million higher. The decrease in number of children in husband-wife families is related largely to the decline in births in recent years, and to the increase in families recently broken by divorce and separation. The birth rate has reached a new low falling to 15.5 per

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