Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children

In this paper, I take advantage of newly available data in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to document outcomes among individuals with deceased parents. I focus first on minors and find that about 2 million children in the United States have a biological mother or father who is deceased.

This is the first direct estimate of the size of the orphan population in the United States. Relative to children with both parents living, these maternal and paternal orphans have less favorable educational and health outcomes but similar levels of economic well-being. I find the Social Security program provides extensive (but not universal) support to the child survivor population, with participation in the program potentially affected by the earnings of deceased parents prior to death and by awareness of benefit eligibility by adult members in the child’s household. Similar to outcomes for child survivors, I find adult respondents who have deceased parents at the time of the SIPP have less favorable educational and health outcomes.

In contrast to child survivors, adults with deceased parents – across a wide range of age groups – are more likely to have low levels of economic well-being. I also find, by examining a past legislative change in Social Security student benefits that would have affected several cohorts in the SIPP, that financial resources available to young adult survivors have effects on educational attainment and effects on income much later in life.

“Figure 1 shows parental death variables by age of respondent in the SIPP. About 2.7 percent of children (or about 2 million children) in the United States have at least one parent deceased. These children are most commonly paternal orphans (2.2 percent of children in the U.S. have a deceased father, compared to 0.6 percent of children with a deceased mother).

A very small percentage of children in the U.S. (roughly 100,000 children or about 0.1 percent of the child population) are estimated to have lost both parents due to death. These are the first direct estimates of the size of the orphan population in the United States…..As expected, a strong pattern with regard to age is revealed in Figure 1.”

Population Review

Type: Article, pp. 23-60

Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children

Author: David A. Weaver*

Affiliation: Congressional Budget Office, Washington, D.C.

Corresponding author/address: David A. Weaver, Congressional Budget Office, Washington, D.C.; email: [email protected]

Abstract

In this paper, I take advantage of newly available data in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to document outcomes among individuals with deceased parents. I focus first on minors and find that about 2 million children in the United States have a biological mother or father who is deceased. This is the first direct estimate of the size of the orphan population in the United States. Relative to children with both parents living, these maternal and paternal orphans have less favorable educational and health outcomes but similar levels of economic well-being. I find the Social Security program provides extensive (but not universal) support to the child survivor population, with participation in the program potentially affected by the earnings of deceased parents prior to death and by awareness of benefit eligibility by adult members in the child’s household. Similar to outcomes for child survivors, I find adult respondents who have deceased parents at the time of the SIPP have less favorable educational and health outcomes. In contrast to child survivors, adults with deceased parents – across a wide range of age groups – are more likely to have low levels of economic well-being. I also find, by examining a past legislative change in Social Security student benefits that would have affected several cohorts in the SIPP, that financial resources available to young adult survivors have effects on educational attainment and effects on income much later in life.

Keywords

Mortality, orphans, social security, education, health, poverty

* David A. Weaver is with the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). This paper has not been subject to CBO’s regular review and editing process. The views expressed here should not be interpreted as CBO’s.

Acknowledgement: The author would like to thank Justin Lee, formerly of CBO, for substantial assistance on this paper. The author is also grateful to Jeff Hemmeter, Shelley Irving, Xiaotong Niu, Chris Tamborini, and Julie Topoleski for their helpful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

© 2019 Sociological Demography Press

Citation

MLA

Weaver, David A.

Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children.

Population Review, vol. 58 no. 2, 2019.

Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/prv.2019.0006.

APA

Weaver, D.A. (2019).

Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children.

Population Review 58(2), doi:10.1353/prv.2019.0006.

Chicago

Weaver, David A.

Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children.

Population Review 58, no. 2 (2019) doi:10.1353/prv.2019.0006.

Endnote

TY – JOUR T1 –

Parental Mortality and Outcomes among Minor and Adult Children

A1 – Weaver, David A. JF – Population Review VL – 58 IS – 2 PY – 2019 PB – Sociological Demography Press SN – 1549-0955 UR – https://muse.jhu.edu/article/732641 N1

Volume 58, Number 2, 2019 ER

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