Employment Characteristics of Families Summary

Technical information:  (202) 691-6378      USDL 07-0673
               http://www.bls.gov/cps/
                                            For release:  10:00 A.M. EDT
Media contact:                691-5902      Wednesday, May 9, 2007
                                     
                                     
              EMPLOYMENT CHARACTERISTICS OF FAMILIES IN 2006


   In 2006, the share of families with an unemployed member declined to 
6.4 percent from 7.0 percent in the prior year, the Bureau of Labor Sta-
tistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today.  The proportion of 
families with an unemployed member has declined each year since 2003, when 
it was 8.1 percent.  Of the nation’s 77.0 million families, 82.4 percent 
had at least one employed member in 2006, essentially unchanged from 2005.
   
   These data on employment, unemployment, and family relationships are
collected as part of the Current Population Survey (CPS), a monthly sample
survey of approximately 60,000 households.  Families include married-couple
families, as well as families maintained by a man or woman with no spouse
present; some families have children while others do not.  For further
information about the CPS, see the Technical Note.
   
Families and Unemployment
   
   In 2006, 4.9 million families had at least one member who was unemployed, 
down from 5.3 million in 2005.  The proportion of black families with an un-
employed member (11.4 percent) continued to be about twice that for white 
(5.6 percent) and Asian (5.2 percent) families.  For Hispanic families, about 
8.0 percent had an unemployed member.  For each of these groups, the propor-
tion of families with an unemployed member in 2006 was down from the prior 
year.  (See table 1.)
   
   In families with an unemployed member, 69.6 percent also had at least 
one employed member in 2006, about the same as in 2005.  Among married-couple 
families with unemployment in 2006, 82.3 percent contained an employed member.  
Among families maintained by men with an unemployed member, 58.3 percent had 
an employed member in 2006; for families headed by women, the proportion was 
47.3 percent.  These proportions were little changed from the prior year for 
these three family types.  (See table 3.)
   
Families and Employment
   
   In 2006, the proportion of all families with at least one employed member, 
at 82.4 percent, was about unchanged from the prior year.  There was little 
or no change in the proportion of families with employed members among white 
(82.7 percent), black (78.1 percent), and Asian (89.9 percent) families.  For 
Hispanic families, the share with an employed member edged up in 2006 to 87.2 
percent.  (See table 1.)
   
   Among married-couple families, 83.8 percent had an employed member in 2006, 
unchanged from 2005.  For families maintained by men or women (no spouse pre-
sent), the proportions with an employed member were 84.9 and 76.0 percent, 
respectively.  Both proportions were little changed from the prior year.  
(See table 2.)
   
   The proportion of married-couple families in which only the husband
worked declined to 19.8 percent in 2006 from 20.2 percent in 2005.  The
proportion of married-couple families in which only the wife worked 
remained at 6.5 percent.  The proportion that were dual-worker couples
(both husband and wife employed) rose from 51.3 to 51.8 percent.
(See table 2.)
   
                                  - 2 -

Families with Children
   
   Just under half of all families include children (sons, daughters, 
step-children, and adopted children) under age 18.  In 2006, among the 
35.6 million families with children under 18, 90.5 percent had an em-
ployed parent, up by 0.3 percentage point from 2005.  The 2006 proportion 
was still below the most recent peak of 92.0 percent in 2000.  In 2006, the
mother was employed in 72.0 percent of families maintained by women, and
the father was employed in 83.5 percent of those maintained by men.  Among
married-couple families, 97.3 percent had an employed parent in 2006, up
from 97.1 percent in 2005.  The proportion of married-couple families in
which both parents were employed rose by 0.7 percentage point to 62.0 per-
cent in 2006.  (See table 4.)
   
Mothers
   
   The labor force participation rate for all mothers, at 70.9 percent, 
was little changed in 2006; it most recently peaked at 72.3 percent in 
2000. The participation rate of married mothers (68.6 percent) was also 
about unchanged in 2006.  The proportion of unmarried mothers--those who 
were widowed, divorced, separated, or never married--who were in the labor 
force in 2006 was 76.6 percent, about the same as in the prior year.
   
   In 2006, the unemployment rate for all mothers with children under 18
declined by 0.5 percentage point to 4.8 percent.  The jobless rate for
married mothers, at 3.1 percent in 2006, also fell by 0.5 percentage point
over the year.  The rate for unmarried mothers edged down in 2006 to 8.5
percent.  For all mothers with children under 6 years, the unemployment
rate decreased to 6.0 percent in 2006.  (See table 5.)
   
   Among mothers with children younger than a year old, 56.1 percent were
in the labor force in 2006, slightly higher than in the prior year.  The
labor force participation rate for unmarried mothers with children under a
year old rose by 4.3 percentage points to 59.0 percent in 2006, while the
rate for married mothers, at 55.0 percent, was about unchanged.  The unem-
ployment rate for all mothers of children under age 1 was 7.4 percent in 
2006, little changed from 2005.  (See table 6.)