Children in Female-Headed Families

Census data on black and white children in female-headed and two-parent families in California are examined. Contextual analysis, extended through a recently developed application of regression analysis, is used to separate the group, or ecological, from the individual level effects of race. It is concluded that, for the most part, individual level effects account for female-headed families among whites but that the interaction between child's race and the racial composition of the county is responsible for the increasing difference between blacks and whites in the proportion of children in female-headed families as the proportion of black children increases.