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Asian-Americans
Have Less Single Moms
Tuesday, July 3, 2001
WASHINGTON (AP) - An Asian-American home is less likely to be
headed by a single mother than the home of a white or black family,
according to census figures that spotlight racial differences in the
composition of American families.
There were smaller shares of single-mother family homes among
Asians than among black or non-Hispanic white families in 16 of 20 states
that have received the latest wave of 2000 census data.
Figures released Tuesday for Oregon, for instance, showed 6.6
percent of Asian family households were led by single moms, compared with
8.8 percent of non-Hispanic white families and 27.2 percent of black
families.
A large part of the Asian population boom in America during the
1990s was from new immigrants who typically come from more conservative,
family-centered backgrounds and ``do not really accept nontraditional
households,'' said Sharon Lee, a sociology professor at Portland State
University.
But that upbringing may also cause a possible undercount in Asian
single-mother households, said Christopher Kui, executive director of
Asian Americans for Equality.
Because divorce and single-motherhood tend to have more of a
social stigma in Asian families, ``there are hidden separations that people
don't talk about,'' Kui said.
Nationally, there was a 25 percent increase between 1990 and 2000
in the category of ``female householder, no husband present with own
children under 18,'' regardless of race.
That category could also include a woman raising a child with an
unmarried partner, or a woman living with a parent or friend who helps
with child-rearing. But surveys show that most of those households
include only single mothers, bureau analyst Jason Fields said.
There are no national breakdowns by race and Hispanic origin
available yet for 2000.
On the state level, references to race in 2000 refer to those who
selected only one race on their form; the figures do not include those
who may have taken advantage of the first-ever option of checking off
more than one race.
So in New York for instance, 4.4 percent of family households
headed by someone identified as only Asian were headed by a single mother.
That was compared to 29.6 percent of families led by a person
identified as only black, and 6.8 percent of families headed by someone only
non-Hispanic white.
All 50 states are scheduled to get their numbers by next month.
Overall, single-parent homes have risen tremendously over the
past 30 years, though census surveys indicate that the increases have
slowed during the latter half of the 1990s, said John Haaga, a demographer
with the Population Reference Bureau.
Black women tend to have a higher percentage of out-of-wedlock
births than other minority groups, and there are disproportionately
higher numbers of black men in prison, said Paul Watanabe, co-director of
the Institute for Asian-American Studies at the University of
Massachusetts-Boston.
Bianca Robinson, 21 and black, divides her time raising a
2-year-old daughter on her own and working in a prelaw program at the
University of Illinois.
Her daughter spends much of the summer with her father, whom
Robinson did not marry and does not live with. Robinson depends on friends
to help care for the child while she is in class or at work.
``For some people I know, the child's father isn't involved, and
some of them have a harder time financially,'' said Robinson, who helps
organize a group for single mothers of all races at the school. ``I get
a lot of help.''
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On the Net:
Census Bureau: http://www.census.gov
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