Profiling Indiana's children - The State of the Child in Indiana, a Lilly Endowment Inc. study

Children Today, July-August, 1989

Profiling Indiana's Children

The numbers of Indiana children and youth in relation to adults are declining faster than the national average, and the trend is expected to continue. Only seven Hoosier babies have been born in recent years for every 10 born in 1960. Some 25 percent of these children grow up with the stark reality of poverty impeding their physical, mental, educational and economic advancement, and one out of two Hoosier children will live part of his or her life in a single-parent family.

These and other facts about Indiana youth are spotlighted in The State of the Child in Indiana, a study commissioned by Lilly Endowment Inc. Dr. Joan Lipsitz, program officer for elementary/secondary education at the Endowment, calls it "a first attempt to hold a mirror to Indiana's children, assess their life circumstances, and see their needs." Since the study is an amalgam of U.S. Census data and other statistical information gathered in the 1980s, its impact stems not from its originality, but from its concentration of facts and figures from many sources, she notes.

The study analyzes the outlook for Hoosier children generally, and then assesses their economic, family, educational and health environments by age group. Among the report's highlights are the following:

* While the nation as a whole experienced a 10 percent increase in the number of children under age five during the 1980s, Indiana witnessed a 3.7 percent decrease in this population group and expects a 30 percent decline in 9th-graders in Hoosier classrooms between 1976 and the 1990s. The report observes, "If we are not going to have quantity, then it is essential to have quality."

* While Indiana's population is relatively stable and is not racially diverse compared to other states, one out of four Hoosier children grows up in poverty. Approximately 15 percent of Indiana families with children are headed by single mothers, but this group constitutes 53 percent of all poor families in the state.

* Indiana's monthly Aid to Families with Dependent Children payments amount to 64 percent of the national average payment. Although 82 percent of unmarried Indiana women with school-age children are employed, more than half of their children live in poverty. The 1979 U.S. Census found that the median income of the state's mother-child families was only 38 percent of that for two-parent families.

* The strong association between families headed by single mothers and poverty is affecting increasing numbers of Indiana children. While Indiana's birthrate declined slightly between 1980 and 1984, births to unwed mothers soared from nine percent (8,700 out-of-wedlock births) of the state's total births in 1970 to 19 percent (15,000 out-of-wedlock births) in 1984.

* Minority children - who are mainly concentrated in the state's urban areas - face increased risks. Black infants die twice as often as white babies, and Indianapolis has the highest rate of black infant mortality of any city in the nation. Some 38 percent of black Midwestern children grow up in poverty compared to 16 percent of white children, black teenage girls bear a higher percentage of the babies born out-of-wedlock, black teenage boys die more often than their white counterparts, and the proportion of black Hoosier youth enrolling in college has shrunk from 12 percent in the late 1970s to nine percent today.

* Although Hoosiers traditionally have been less likely than the average American to quit school early, they are more likely to stop at the high school level and less likely to go to college. While Indiana students read at above average levels at 6th grade, they show significant declines by 10th grade, and Indiana students perform near the bottom of the nation on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. Meanwhile, the state's ranking in per capita income has slipped along with its manufacturing economy.

The report concludes: "Without a purposeful mobilization on behalf of youth, the problems described in these pages will almost certainly intensify. The depth of vulnerability experienced by so many of our children is bound to be damaging to them, and rending of their spirit and hope. And when young people are in struggle, the community as a whole is diminished."

An 11-page summary of the study report is available while supplies last from the Indiana Youth Institute, P.O. Box 26-919, Indianapolis, Ind. 46226. Further information on the study may be obtained from Dr. Joan Lipsitz, Lilly Endowment, Inc., 2801 North Meridian St, P.O. Box 88068, Indianapolis, Ind. 46208.