-Source: United States Census Bureau, http://www.nces.ed.gov/pubs/digest97/d97t103.html
High School Dropouts
In October
of 1996, 3.6 million, or 11.1% of young adults 16 to 24-years-old
were dropouts -- i.e., they were not enrolled in a high school
program and had not completed high school. Nearly a half million
of them left high school between October of 1995 and 1996.
In 1996, 13%
of black 16 to 24-year-olds were dropouts, compared to 7.3% of
young whites and 29.4% of Hispanics. Despite their low dropout
rates, whites account for 1.6 million or 44% of all dropouts.
Hispanics comprise 36 % (or 1.3 million) of all dropouts, and
blacks 16% (or 0.6 million).
Between 1960
and 1986, dropout percentages among young African Americans were
cut in half, falling from 30% to 15% among men and from 27% to
14% among women. Since 1986, dropout rates have remained relatively
stable or declined only modestly, not only among African Americans,
but also in the total population.
Young adults from families in the lowest fifth of the income distribution were five times more likely to drop out than those with families in the top fifth (not illustrated on chart; data from National Center for Educational Statistics).
Drop-outs
The half -million
young adults who dropped out from high school between October
1997 and October 1998 were much less likely to participate in
the labor force (60.9%) than their peers who graduated from high
school, but did not enroll in college (79.6%). Their unemployment
rate was also much higher: 28.2% versus 18.4%. Among dropouts,
women were less likely than men to participate in the labor force,
and they were twice as likely to be unemployed.
From 1988
to 1997, 16-to-24-year-old black men were more than twice as likely
as young white men to be both out of school and out of work. Except
between 1990 and 1992, the ratio between young black women and
young white women has been lower and declined to 21.4% for black
women and 13.4% for white women. The 1997 percentage of black
women out of school and out of work (21.4%) was a ten-year low
and represented a sharp decline from the peak of 33.5% in 1991;
the peak for young black men was 21.5% in 1992, and this declined
only modestly to 19% in 1997.
Throughout most of the decade, Hispanic women had the highest percentage (33-35%) of youth not at school or work, but this rate fell greatly from 34.6% in 1995 to 25.6% in 1997. They remain twice as likely as young Hispanic men (13.6%) to be out of school and out of work.
References
The Council of Economic Advisers for the President's Initiative on Race. Changing America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being by Race and Hispanic Origin. September1998. http://www.access.gpo.gov/eop/ca/index.html .
National Center for Educational Statistics. Dropout Rates Remain Stable Over Last Decade. 1997. http://nces.ed.gov/Pressrelease/dropout.html
National Center for Educational Statistics. Dropout Rates in the United States: 1996. December 1997. http://nces.ed.gov/pubs98/dropout/index.html
Prepared by Cassandra Cantave and Roderick Harrison for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. August 1999.