AUTHOR: ELAINE SORENSEN
This is the first of several blogs OCSS will release over the next few months that analyzes data from the 2023 Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (CPS-CSS), which is conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau roughly every two years.
This blog describes the changes in the race and ethnicity of custodial parents between 1994 and 2023, using the CPS-CSS. The survey generates a representative sample of custodial parents with children under 21 in the home. These parents are all eligible to receive child support but may not be in the national child support program's caseload.
The U.S. Census Bureau follows Office of Management and Budget guidelines regarding the collection of information on race and ethnicity. Currently, these characteristics are captured by two separate questions. First, the survey asks respondents whether they are of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.1 A second question asks them to choose one or more races from a list of five race categories.2 These two questions and their order have changed over time. Most notably, prior to 2003, respondents were first asked to select a single race from a list of four race categories.3 In a later question, they were asked to identify their origin from a long list of possible origins.4
To make the race and ethnicity categories as consistent as possible over time and to capture as much information as possible, this blog uses the following six race and ethnicity categories:
- Hispanic or Latino
- White alone, non-Hispanic
- Black or African American alone, non-Hispanic
- Asian and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander alone, non-Hispanic
- American Indian or Alaska Native alone, non-Hispanic
- Two or More Races, non-Hispanic
Custodial parents are first identified by whether they indicate they are Hispanic or Latino. If they do not identify as Hispanic or Latino, they are identified by their selected race category (or categories after 2002).
Figure 1 displays the trends in these categories between 1994 and 2023. It is important to note that the percent of custodial parents in each of the final three race and ethnicity categories is below 3% throughout this period. To see their trends more clearly, these three categories are portrayed in the bottom section of Figure 1 and are calibrated to the left vertical axis that ranges from 0 to 3%. The first three categories are portrayed in the top section of Figure 1 and are calibrated to the left axis that ranges from 10% to 60%. As noted above, respondents were not allowed to select more than one race prior to 2003. Thus, the category “Two or More Races, Non-Hispanic” does not appear in Figure 1 until 2004.
Figure 1. Race and Ethnicity of Custodial Parents, 1994 to 2023
The major change in the race and ethnicity of custodial parents is the dramatic increase in the percent of custodial parents who self-identify as Hispanic, especially since the revision of the race and ethnicity questions in 2003. Between 1994 and 2002, the percent of custodial parents who self-identified as Hispanic increased from 12% to 14%. From 2004 to 2023, it increased from 14% to 25%.
The percent of custodial parents who self-identified as White and not Hispanic fell slightly from 60% to 58% between 1994 and 2002. After the race and ethnicity questions changed, the percent of custodial parents who self-identified as White alone and not Hispanic fell from 56% to 45% between 2004 and 2023.
The percent of custodial parents who self-identified as Black and not Hispanic also fell slightly from 26% to 24% between 1994 and 2002, and then continued to decline slightly after the race and ethnicity questions changed. Between 2004 and 2023, the percent of custodial parents who self-identified as Black alone and not Hispanic declined from 25% to 23%.
Turning to the final three race and ethnicity categories, Figure 1 shows that the percent of custodial parents who self-identified as Asian alone or Hawaiian/Pacific Islander alone and not Hispanic increased from 1.32% to 2.84% between 1994 and 2023. The percent of custodial parents who self-identified as American Indian and not Hispanic did not change significantly during this period, starting at .79% in 1994 and ending at 1.23% in 2023. The percent of custodial parents who self-identified as belonging to two or more race categories and not Hispanic began at 1.75% in 2004 and ended at 2.3% in 2023. The largest multiple race category among custodial parents was American Indian and White and not Hispanic, which averaged around 1% between 2004 and 2023 (not shown).
These changes in the race and ethnicity of custodial parents are like those taking place among the entire population of the United States. The white population in the U.S. declined 16 percentage points between 1994 and 2023, from 74% to 58% and the Hispanic population nearly doubled, increasing from 10% to 19%.5
1. For more information about the current race and ethnicity questions in the CPS, see Basic CPS Items Booklet Demographic Items. Undated. Accessed at: https://www2.census.gov/programs-surveys/cps/techdocs/questionnaires/Demographics.pdf (PDF)
2. The five race categories are: White; Black or African American; American Indian or Alaska Native; Asian; and Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander.
3. The four race categories were: White; Black; American Indian, Eskimo, or Aleut; and Asian or Pacific Islander.
4. For more information regarding the race and ethnicity questions used prior to 2003, see Bowler, Mary, Randy E. Ilg, Stephen Miller, Ed Robison, and Anne Polivka. Revisions to the Current Population Survey Effective in January 2003. Undated. Accessed at: https://www.bls.gov/cps/rvcps03.pdf (PDF)
5. U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Annual Estimates of the Resident Population by Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: April 1, 2020, to July 1, 2023 (NC-EST2023-SR11H), June 2024. Accessed at: https://www.census.gov/data/tables/time-series/demo/popest/2020s-national-detail.html . Byerly, Edwin R., and Kevin Deardorff, National and State Population Estimates: 1990 to 1994, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P25-1127, 1995 (Table 9. Estimates of Resident Population by Age, Sex, Race, and Hispanic Origin for the United States: July 1, 1994). Accessed at: https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/1995/demo/p25-1127.pdf (PDF).