1st appeared 8 September 1998

Working Parents in California Face Greater Demands

Despite the current strength of the California economy, the results of a new survey led by UCSF researchers indicate that a relatively large proportion of all Californian households with children under age 18 have incomes below 125 percent of the Federal poverty level (28 percent) and many (20 percent) report that they are very or somewhat likely to experience inadequate housing, food, or medical attention in the next two months.

In contrast, only 11 percent of California households without children have incomes below 125 percent of the Federal poverty level, and only ten percent of such households report that they are very or somewhat likely to experience inadequate housing, food, or medical attention in the next two months.

The California Work and Health Survey (CWHS) was led by Edward Yelin and Laura Trupin of the Institute for Health Policy Studies and Department of Medicine at UCSF. The CWHS project is funded by the Work and Health Initiative of the California Wellness Foundation. The 1998 survey -- the first for CWHS -- was administered between June 10 and July 21, 1998 to 1,771 adults (age 18 or older) living in California.

Noteworthy to the researchers was the ethnic diversity of California's households with children. Whites, not of Hispanic origin, comprise only 45 percent of all the State's households with children and Latinos alone account for 40 percent. Yet in households with no children, whites comprise two-thirds and Latinos only 18 percent of such households.

Another finding from the study is that working parents face great demands in balancing employment and family needs. A larger proportion of employed parents in California works more than 45 hours a week than adults under age 55 without children who are employed (38 percent versus 31 percent).

When employed parents with young children get home, they spend an average of 4.5 hours each day caring for their children's physical needs and a fifth spend at least 10 hours doing so. Perhaps because of this, 22 percent of California's parents report not getting enough sleep on at least 20 days in the past month, a larger proportion than among adults with no children in the household (14 percent).

The economic situation of California households with children is much worse when a single parent, rather than a couple, is present. Single-parent households comprise 21 percent of all California households with children. Half of Californian single-parent households have annual incomes of less than $20,000, compared to 21 percent of the households with children in which a couple is present. Differences in education among the adults in these two kinds of households may account for some of this income gap. In 54 percent of single parent households the parent has a high school education or less, while only 14 percent are college graduates. In contrast, 45 percent of the adults in households with children in which a couple is present have a high school education or less and 28 percent are college graduates.

Single parents are less likely to have health insurance, but, at the same time, are in poorer health than parents who are part of a couple. Only 61 percent of single parents report having any form of health insurance, of whom 35 percent receive health coverage from an employer or labor union. In contrast, 73 percent of parents in couples have health insurance, most of whom (61 percent) receive it through an employer or labor union.

A smaller proportion of single parents reports being in excellent or very good health than parents in couples (53 percent versus 63 percent). In addition, twice as many single parents as their counterparts in couples experience a high or moderate level of depressive symptoms (33 percent versus 17 percent).

Single parents are more likely to partake in risky health behaviors than parents in couples. For example, a slightly larger proportion of single parents currently smokes (23 percent versus 17 percent) and a smaller proportion has never smoked (50 percent versus 65 percent). Although single parents are about as likely to drink any alcoholic beverages as parents in couples (45 percent and 49 percent of the two groups, respectively, report drinking alcohol in the past month), when they do drink, they are more likely to drink heavily. Twenty-one percent of single parents, but only 11 percent of parents in couples, had more than three drinks on the days they drank. Similarly, 22 percent of single parents, but only 12 percent of parents in couples, report at least one instance in which they had five or more drinks on one occasion in the past month.

Finally, a smaller proportion of single parent households owns a personal computer than households with children where a couple resides (36 percent versus 63 percent), an indication that the members of single-parent households may be at some disadvantage competing for high-tech jobs in the years to come.

source: Institute for Health Policy Studies

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