Information collected on child wellbeing through the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) has evolved over the years to include a broad range of data on school experiences, participation in extracurricular activities and parental involvement.

The SIPP was redesigned for the 2014 Panel to be less time intensive for respondents. For questions about extracurricular activities and school experiences (expulsion/grade repetition/gifted classes/engagement level), a parent is asked if each item applies to any children, and then a follow-up question identifies which child. For questions about parental engagement, the parent is asked about involvement for all of their children in the home who are in the age universe for the question. In previous panels, parents were asked each well-being question separately for each child. Most of the child wellbeing content is available on both the parent and the child records in the SIPP data files.

The SIPP also collects information on Adult Wellbeing that is distinct from the Child Wellbeing content.

Child Wellbeing Definitions

Questions about parental involvement include the number of times in a typical week coresident and non-coresident parents shared dinners with their 0-17 year-old children, took their 0-5 year-old children on outings or read to their 0-5 year-old children.

Children’s extracurricular activities includes playing on a sports team, participating in club activities, taking lessons or attending religious activities. This content applies to 6-17 year-old children.

School experiences includes questions about whether a child has ever repeated a grade, has ever been suspended or expelled, attends gifted classes and level of engagement with school and homework for children 6-17 years old.

The universe of respondents consists of adults who are parents of children under 18 years old. Like the Child Care section, the Child Well-Being section asks one parent, labeled the ‘reference parent’, questions on this topic when there are two parents present.

Contact Us

For assistance, please contact the Census Call Center at 1-800-923-8282 (toll free) or visit ask.census.gov for further information.