pop "Fertility & Econ Characteristics of AFDC Mothers" (03/03/95)

                  EMBARGOED UNTIL:  MARCH 3, 1995 (FRIDAY)

Public Information Office                            CB95-42
301-457-2794
301-457-4067 (TDD)

Amara Bachu
301-457-2449

                   CENSUS RELEASES AFDC RECIPIENTS REPORT

      EMBARGOED UNTIL:  MARCH 3, 1995 (FRIDAY) - 
Twenty-nine percent of mothers 15 to 44 years old who received
Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) in 1993 had their
first child before they turned 18 years old, a Census Bureau
statistical brief said today.

      Almost 30 percent (1.1 million) of all AFDC recipients in
1993 were married mothers with an average of 2.8 children each. 
One-half million mothers on AFDC were in intact marriages.  Most
married mothers (648,000) on AFDC had separated from their
spouses or had husbands absent from the household.  Another 
23 percent (851,000) of the mothers on AFDC were widowed or
divorced.  The brief, titled "Mothers Who Receive AFDC Payments -
- Fertility and Socioeconomic Characteristics" (SB/95-2), focuses
on mothers in the childbearing years.

      Never-married mothers represented 48 percent of the mothers
in the 15-to-44-year age group on AFDC, the report said.  These
1.8 million never-married mothers supported about 4.2 million
children, or an average of 2.4 children per mother on AFDC.

      AFDC is the program administered and funded by federal and
state governments to provide financial assistance to needy
families.  The data in the brief, a four-page report with graphs
and charts, were collected in the Survey of Income and Program
Participation between June and September 1993.

      Other findings in the brief are:

      ©     On average, AFDC mothers receiving payments were 
            20 years old when they had their first birth compared 
ÁÁ       with 23 years of age for mothers who were not ÁÐ Ð FÁÁ(#(#KÁ 
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  receiving AFDC.

      ©     AFDC mothers tended to have more children than those
            who did not receive AFDC payments.  The AFDC mothers
            had 2.6 children each on average compared with 
            2.1 children born to mothers not receiving AFDC.  
            Altogether, there were 9.7 million children dependent
            on mothers receiving AFDC.
Œ      ©     About one in 10 foreign-born mothers--392,000 out of
            4.2 million--was on AFDC in the summer of 1993.  
            Three-quarters of these mothers (292,000) were not
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  U.S. citizens.

      ©     One-quarter of African American mothers 15-44 years
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  old (1.5 million out of 5.7 million) received AFDC
            payments.  Nearly one in five Hispanic-origin mothers
            (784,000) aged 15 to 44 was on AFDC.  More White
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  women (2.1 million) than African American women
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  received AFDC payments, but they represented only 7
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  percent of all White mothers in the childbearing
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  ages.  

      ©     Of the 3.8 million mothers on AFDC, 44 percent had
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  less than a high school education, 38 percent had
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  completed high school, and 19 percent had one or more
ÁÁÁ`	`	Á  years of college.

      ©     Unlike mothers not receiving AFDC payments, most
            mothers on AFDC (80 percent) were living in poverty. 
            About 72 percent of AFDC mothers were living in
            households with monthly family incomes under $1,000. 
            These low-income mothers supported an average of 
            2.7 children each.

      As in all surveys, the data in this report are subject to
sampling variability and other sources of error.

                                     -X-

EDITOR'S NOTE:  EMBARGOED UNTIL:  MARCH 3, 1995 (FRIDAY)  media
representatives may request a copy of this statistical brief from
the bureau's Public Information Office by telephone:  
301-457-2794, fax:  301-457-3670, e-mail:  pio@census.gov, or
obtain it on the Internet (in Gopher:  gopher gopher.census.gov;
in Mosaic:  http://www.census.gov/).  Non-media orders should go
to the bureau's Customer Services Office on 301-763-INFO(4636).