2011 The Palm Beach County Family Study (Full Report)

The Year 5 Study SampleTable 4 shows changes in selected family characteristics over time. The most noteworthy changecontinues to be an increase in the proportion of the mothers who are working. At baseline, just 13 percentof the sample mothers were working part time or full time, whereas nearly half (46%) were working at thetime of the fifth interview. There were additional, modest changes in educational levels, community ofresidence, and marital status over time. These changes are described below.Household CharacteristicsAt the beginning of the study, 13 percent of the sample families lived in the Glades TGA and 87 percentlived in the other three TGAs. 8 Over the 5 years of the study, there has been a modest increase in thepercentage of study families living outside the TGAs (13% in year 5). Most of this movement has comefrom families in the non-Glades TGAs; consequently, in the fifth year, 75 percent live in the non-GladesTGAs, compared with 87 percent in the first year. 9 The proportion of families who live in the Glades hasbeen fairly stable.The proportion of married mothers has also remained fairly stable over time. However, the percentage ofmothers who are single and living with a partner declined from 39 percent to 31 percent from the first tothe fifth interview, while the percentage of mothers who are single and not in a relationship increasedfrom 20 percent to 26 percent. Overall, 64 percent of mothers were either married or living with a partnerin the fifth year.In terms of household composition, at the time of the year 5 interview, 25 percent of the sample had onechild, 32 percent had two, and 44 percent had three or more. Over 40 percent of mothers reported thatthey had had another child since the birth of their focal child. 10 Seventeen mothers (or 6% of the sample)were pregnant at the time of the year 5 interview; for five mothers, this was at least the second pregnancysince the birth of their focal child. Household sizes at the time of the interview ranged from 1 to 14members in the fifth year, with an average of 4.9 members per household. Ten percent of the mothersreported they had other children under the age of 18 who were not living in their households. 118 For our descriptive analyses, we weighted the survey data to adjust for the oversampling of mothers from the Glades TGA andmothers who were screened through the MCHP system to be “at risk.”9 At year 5, a majority of the mothers living outside the TGAs had moved to one of three areas (zip codes 33411, 33414, and 33463).10 In 2002 the interval between first and second births was less than 12 months for 5 percent and between 13 and 24 months for 23percent of low-income (0%–149% of poverty level) mothers ages 20 to 44 (CDC, U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, 2005).11 Four mothers reported that their children were living with another relative at year 5, although two expected their children toreturn home in the next 6 months. Among the four, one reported that DCF removed the children, and another said that the courtshad awarded custody to the father. We exclude mothers who permanently lose custody of the focal child, but keep those whoreport temporary separations from the child, even if they are unsure about when the child will return.Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago 9