The traditional two-parents family is fast giving way in the America of the 1980s to households in which one must juggle the often enormous demands of a living and raising children.
For many, single parenthood is synonymous with economic need．More than 3 million single-parent families live in poverty, according to the Census Bureau, and joblessness, plus cuts in public assistance, has helped drive up the number of poor children in such families by about 20 percent in just three years.
The biggest burden falls on households that are headed by single mothers．Nearly half of these families are below the poverty as' the most compelling social fact 'of the last 10 years.
This deprivation is not only hard on its victims but expensive for taxpayers since single women and their offspring receive 40 to 80 percent of the benefits in various welfare programs that cost the government a total of 40 billion dollars a year．Despite cuts in benefits averaging 10 percent, rising number of eligible women are likely to keep the overall cost up, according to economist Alice Rivlin, former director of the Congressional Budget office.
Fanning the single-parent spiral are two dramatic offshoots of the ual revolution: divorce and unwed(未婚的) motherhood．The divorce rate has doubled in the last 15 years, and the number of illegitimate births has more than doubled to 700,000 annually．One tenth of white children and more than one half of black children are now born out of wedlock．What's more, there is a strong tendency now for women and agers who have illegitimate children to keep rather than put them up for adoption.
Typical is Rufina Nera of Los Angeles．When she became pregnant at 15, abortion was never mentioned in her home．Instead, her mother encouraged her to have the child, says Nera, adding: 'She even gave a baby shower for me.'
Now, Nera shares a crowded bedroom with her 2-year-old daughter as well as her sister．She hope no hope of help from the father, although he remarked during the only time he saw the child that she was prettier than his other illegitimate baby．Even so, Nera tries to keep her attention on two goals: moving into her own apartment and getting enough education to become a secretary or a nurse．Her first step along that path is attending Ramona High School, an 'opportunity school' where she and 110 other girls study while their babies are cared for in a nursery.
What effect does joblessness and cuts in public assistance have on children of single - parent families?