The aging of the baby boom matters for child support populations because of the age pattern of parenthood. As baby boomers age out of these Figure 4.3. The aging of the baby boom is the single most important factor in the slowing in the rate of increase of child support populations. Indeed, precisely because of the aging of the baby boom, the Census Bureau projects that the number of children in the United States will change very little over the next ten years. As noted earlier in this report, the number of children in the United States is projected to increase only 3 percent between 1998 and 2009.
Divorce rates are another important determinant of child support populations.
As shown in Figure 4.4, divorce rates, after almost tripling from 1960 to 1980, have actually declined. From its peak in 1979 of 22.8 divorces per 1,000 married women, the divorce rate dropped 17 percent to 19.5 divorces per 1,000 married women in 1996. Still, the annual number of divorces remains at or near record levels, and divorce rates are still very high by long-term standards. The high divorce rate leads to increases in the child support population, though the increases are not as great as they would have been had divorce rates continued to increase into the twenty-first century. About 1.2 million divorces occur each year, involving approximately 1 million children.