Second Annual Index of Belonging and Rejection

Executive Summary:

The Second Annual Index of Family Belonging & Rejection

Patrick Fagan and Nicholas Zill

Index Highlights:

Only 45.8 percent of American children reach the age of 17 with both their biological parents married (since before or around the time of their birth).
The Index of Family Belonging is highest in the Northeast (49.6 percent) and lowest in the South (41.8 percent).
Minnesota (57 percent) and Utah (56.5 percent) have the highest Index of Family Be-longing values of all the states; Mississippi (34 percent) has the lowest.
Family belonging is, as in 2008, strongest among Asians (65.8 percent) and weakest among Blacks (16.7 percent).
While the effects of government spending on high school graduation rates are curvilinear and offer diminishing returns, family belonging is positively and significantly associated with high school graduation rates.
Family belonging and child poverty are significantly, inversely related: States with high Index values have relatively low child poverty rates, and vice versa.
There is also a significant, inverse relationship between family belonging and the incidence of births to unmarried teenagers.

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