Collaborative Research: Family Structure and Inequality in Contemporary America

在过去的三十年里，美国家庭之间的经济不平等加剧了。不平等加剧的一个可能驱动因素是家庭状况的变化，特别是生活在已婚父母家庭中的儿童比例急剧下降。值得注意的是，与现代美国生活的结构和经济背景有关的其他因素也在发生变化，可能也导致了家庭之间的经济不平等。这个项目分析了当代美国有孩子的家庭之间的经济不平等。该项目将是第一个同时调查当代美国景观的几个特征的项目。目标是了解1）家庭收入和财富如何因家庭的关键特征而变化，例如家庭是否包括一个或两个父母，如果父母是双亲，父母是否结婚，以及2）家庭特征和家庭经济资源之间的这些关联在1980-2013年期间如何变化。1980-2013年的数据来自当前人口调查和收入和方案参与调查。至少有一名18岁以下儿童的家庭将被划分为七种家庭类型之一。该研究将家庭经济资源的变化分解为家庭类型之间和家庭类型内的组成部分，并估计收入波动，在家庭类型内，使用家庭收入的标准差和永久性和暂时性方差。PI考虑家庭结构的静态措施和随时间的变化。该项目研究了可能影响家庭经济资源的因素，这些因素在以前的研究中没有得到充分的探讨，包括父母工资和劳动收入的逐年变化，家庭从政府计划和税收抵免（如劳动所得税抵免）中获得的资源变化，以及家庭中成年人数量的稳定性。此外，我们将研究家庭之间在财富和债务方面的差异，以及收入方面的差异。我们的研究结果将帮助社会科学家了解美国家庭的变化如何与收入和财富不平等的增长有关，以及政府计划和税收的变化是否正在扩大儿童之间的经济不平等。

In the last three decades, economic inequality among families in the United States has increased. One of the likely drivers of rising inequality is the changing familial landscape, especially the steep decline in the percentage of children living in married-parent families. Notably, other factors related to the structural and economic context of modern American life were also changing and may have also contributed to economic inequality among families. This project analyzes economic inequality among families with children in the contemporary United States. This project will be the first to simultaneously investigate several features of the contemporary American landscape. The goal is to understand 1) how family income and wealth vary by key characteristics of families, such as whether families include one or two parents and, if two parents, whether the parents are married, and 2) how these associations between family characteristics and family economic resources have changed over the time period of 1980-2013. The data, for the years 1980-2013, come from the Current Population Survey and the Survey of Income and Program Participation. Families with at least one resident child under the age of 18 will be classified into one of seven family types. The study willdecompose changes in family economic resources into between- and within-family type components and estimate income volatility, within family type, using both the standard deviation and permanent and transitory variances of family income. The PIs consider both static measures of, and over-time changes in family structure. This project examines factors that may affect family economic resources that have not been fully explored in previous research, including year-to-year changes in parental wages and earned income, changes in resources that families receive from government programs and tax credits such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), and stability in the number of adults living in the family household. Additionally, we will examine differences across families in wealth and debts, in addition to differences in income. Our results will help social scientists understand how changes in American families are related to growing income and wealth inequality, and whether changes in government programs and taxes are widening economic inequalities among children.