Study finds ethnic, race gaps eased
By Wendy Koch
USA Today
Black and Hispanic children have made significant gains in health, safety and income over the past two decades, narrowing gaps between them and white children, according to a pioneering report on child development to be released tomorrow.
They still fare worse overall than whites, but they're catching up in several areas and are less likely to smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, abuse drugs or commit suicide, according to the report. It was sponsored by the Foundation for Child Development, a philanthropy that funds research on children.
"There's a long way to go, but this is an enormous closing of the gap," said co-author Donald Hernandez, a sociology professor at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He said the overall gap between black and white children closed by one-fourth, and between Hispanics and whites by one-third.
"That's stunning. I was frankly surprised by the extent of it."
The report evaluates how children fared from 1985 to 2004, based on 28 measures of income, education, health, safety, social relationships and community involvement. It combines them for a score known as a child well-being index. It found that children, especially minorities, fared worse in the 1980s but made significant gains in the 1990s.
"This is the first document that looks at racial and ethnic gaps over that 20-year period," said William O'Hare, senior fellow at the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which issues annual reports on children's progress. He attributed the narrowing gaps to the 1990s economy and government programs that subsidized child care, provided health insurance for children of the working poor and gave tax credits to those parents.
Among the report's findings:
In education, results were mixed. The report found substantial progress for minorities in preschool enrollment but little closing of gaps in reading and math test scores. The percentage of blacks and whites who earned bachelor's degrees rose sharply, but that of Hispanics barely budged.
The report provides advanced research on children's quality of life, said Roderick Harrison, demographer at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, which researches issues of special interest to blacks. Still, he questioned some of the measures. For example, he said, enrollment in early-education programs does not seem to raise test scores later.
Whatever the progress, "we shouldn't be complacent," said Margaret Simms, fellow at the Urban Institute, a group that studies social policy. She said even white children in the United States score worse than those in many industrialized countries.
