Sam+Roberts.

February 26, 2009 =Census Finds Fewer Homes Have a Child in Residence= By [|SAM ROBERTS] Aging baby boomers and declining fertility rates mean that fewer than half of American families include a child living at home, the [|Census Bureau] said Wednesday. That is one of the findings from the bureau’s 2008 Current Population Survey on family structure. The survey shows wide disparities in living arrangements on the basis of race, ethnicity and income. “In 2008, not only were baby boomers old enough that most of their children were 18 and over, but they were having fewer kids than their parents, as well,” said Rose Kreider, a bureau demographer. The proportion of family households that included a child under the age of 18 peaked at 57 percent in the early 1960s and fell below 50 percent in the mid-1980s. In 2008, it was 46 percent. The census counted 25,173,000 married couples living with children, a decline of one million from the year before and the lowest number since 1999. “It is sort of interesting that it didn’t go up,” Ms. Kreider said. “But it’s hard to say whether it’s going to continue to go down or hold steady.” Slightly more than half of men and women over 18 are married and living with their spouse. Among people making $100,000 or more, though, 82 percent of men and 65 percent of women are living with a spouse. Among black men and women over 18, only 33 percent are living with a spouse. Among women age 45 to 49, 79 percent of Asians, 69 percent of white non-Hispanics, 62 percent of Hispanics and 43 percent of blacks were married. Eighty-five percent of Asian children lived with two parents, as did 78 percent of white non-Hispanic children, 70 percent of Hispanic children and 38 percent of black children. About 9 percent of children lived in a household that included a grandparent. Of those, 23 percent had no parent present. Among the nearly 67 million opposite-sex couples living together, more than 60 million were married. The survey did not count same-sex couples. In 2008, the median age for men marrying for the first time was 27.4; for women, 25.6.