The report found that after a divorce, black children’s family income drops by 53% compared with only 30% for white children.

Ann Huff Stevens – the study’s co-author - says one reason is that white women are more likely to remarry. "But the rate of remarriage is a lot lower for blacks so part of the discrepancy is just reflecting that when a typical child in a white household experiences a divorce that living with a single parent may only last a few years. But for blacks it’s much more typical for them to stay with just a single parent over a very long time."

The data was published in a recent issue of Demography. It’s based on figures collected on about 9,000 children around the country who were tracked between 1968 and 1993.