Amorim Mariana, Pilkauskas Natasha
Department of Sociology, Washington State University, Pullman, WA, USA.
Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
Demography. 2023 Oct 1;60(5):1283-1307. doi: 10.1215/00703370-10949975.
The proportion of U.S. children living in doubled-up households, in which a child lives with a parent plus adult kin or nonkin, has increased in the last 40 years. Although shared living arrangements are often understood as a strategy to cope with crises, no research to date has examined changes in children's living arrangements during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic. We use the American Community Survey and the Current Population Survey to examine children's doubled-up living arrangements during 2020 and the extent to which children may have experienced "excess" doubling up relative to earlier years. We consider trends by household type (multigenerational, extended with other relatives, and nonrelative households) and differences by demographic characteristics (marital status, race and ethnicity, work status, education, age, and number of coresident children). We find evidence that more than half a million (509,600) children experienced "excess" doubling up in 2020. Greater than expected increases in doubled-up arrangements were driven by increases in multigenerational households, in particular among Black and Hispanic children, young children (under age six), those whose mothers never married, and those whose mothers were not working. Correlates of coresidence remained largely unchanged over time, although having a mother who had never married became a stronger correlate in 2020. Our findings suggest that both economic and instrumental needs likely explained the rise in multigenerational coresidence in 2020.
在过去40年里，美国儿童生活在合住家庭（即孩子与父母以及成年亲属或非亲属住在一起）中的比例有所上升。尽管合住安排通常被视为应对危机的一种策略，但迄今为止尚无研究考察新冠疫情第一年期间儿童生活安排的变化情况。我们利用美国社区调查和当前人口调查来研究2020年儿童的合住安排，以及相对于早些年儿童可能经历“过度”合住的程度。我们考虑了不同家庭类型（多代同堂家庭、与其他亲属的大家庭以及非亲属家庭）的趋势以及不同人口特征（婚姻状况、种族和族裔、工作状况、教育程度、年龄以及同住子女数量）的差异。我们发现，有证据表明在2020年超过50万（509,600）名儿童经历了“过度”合住。合住安排超出预期的增加是由多代同堂家庭数量的增加推动的，特别是在黑人及西班牙裔儿童、幼儿（6岁以下）、母亲从未结婚的儿童以及母亲没有工作的儿童中。随着时间的推移，同住的相关因素基本保持不变，不过在2020年，母亲从未结婚这一因素成为了更强的相关因素。我们的研究结果表明，经济需求和实际需求可能都解释了2020年多代同堂家庭数量的增加。
