Children in Nonparental Care

Typically, one or two parents and a child – along with any siblings – comprise a family, and the parents’ interactions with the child are a primary driver of the child’s development. Yet nearly 4 percent of U.S. children (nearly 3 million) live in homes with no parent present. This research brief summarizes a longer literature review of the research on children who live apart from their parents. This literature review was developed as a step toward designing the National Survey of Children in Nonparental Care, a nationally representative telephone survey of adults caring for these children, data for which will be available in 2014.