This report is the third examination of children’s well-being and their daily activities based on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). It addresses children’s living arrangements and their family’s characteristics, early child care experiences, daily interaction with parents, extracurricular activities, academic experience, and parents’ educational expectations.

The data in this report were collected by the U.S. Census Bureau from February through May 2003 in the seventh wave (interview) of the 2001 Panel of the SIPP.¹ The population represented is the civilian noninstitutionalized population living in the United States. The statistics in this report are based on data collected in the child well-being topical module. The 2003 data were collected from a national sample of 9,925 “designated parents” (see definition box) and their 18,413 children. This sample represented 72.7 million children living in households with at least one designated parent (Table 1).²

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¹ A description of the SIPP survey design and the wording of the questions on the child well-being topical module can be found on the Internet at <www.sipp.census.gov/SIPP>.

² The estimates in this report (which may be shown in text, figures, and tables) are based on responses from a sample of the population and may differ from the actual values because of sampling variability or other factors. As a result, apparent differences between the estimates for two or more groups may not be statistically significant. All comparative statements have undergone statistical testing and are significant at the 90-percent confidence level unless otherwise noted.