Record: Coalition for Responsible Home Education, “A Complex Picture: Results of the 2014 Survey of Adult Alumni of the Modern Christian Homeschool Movement, Installment Six” Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (15 April 2016). [Available Here]
Summary: This post reviews the sixth installment of HARO’s survey of homeschool alumni. For the other installments in the series please click on the following links:
- Installment 1: Background and Summary
- Installment 2: Demographics
- Installment 3: Academics and Non-Academics
- Installment 4: Food and Health
- Installment 5: Religion
- Installment 6: Present and Future
- Installment 7: Sexuality
- Installment 8: Mental Health
- Installment 9: Abuse
The sixth installment of HARO’s survey investigates the respondents’ current living situations as well as their career status.
73% of the respondents reported that they had been in a serious romantic or sexual relationship at some point in their lives. Of those who had not, most were between the ages of 18 and 25. At the time of the survey, 46% of the respondents were married, and 30% were single. Fewer than 6% were divorced. For the most part, survey respondents were about 15-20% more likely to be married than the general population. However, 18-25 year old men were actually less likely to be married than their peers in the general population. The authors use this data to demonstrate that Christian homeschool alumni may prefer earlier marriage for women but later marriage for men than the general population.
46% of the respondents over age 25 had children. It appears that homeschool alumni may wait later than the general population to have children since the number of children for respondents between the ages 26-34 was lower, but the birth rate for 35+ was higher (2.22 vs. 1.99). Approximately 2/3 of the respondents’ children were planned, and overall, 73% of the respondents either had children already or planned to have children in the future. Of the respondents in sexual relationships, more than 2/3 used birth control.
Now the focus shifts to the education of their children. 47% of the respondents said that they would only homeschool their current or future children. This was followed by 19% that said they would only send their children to public schools. Nevertheless, a high majority agreed that children’s preferences about their own education should be a significant and substantial factor in deciding schooling platform.
The unemployment rate for the homeschool alumni was nearly identical to the national unemployment rate at the time. 6% of the respondents were seeking paid work but were unemployed. 65% of the respondents said they were satisfied; 13% said they were unsatisfied, and 22% said they were not currently employed. Of the 42% of the sample who were employed and not students, the most common industries were education (15%), health care (9%), IT/technology (6%), and arts & entertainment (6%). The authors suspect that these professions may have to do with the fact that the sample is skewed female. Nationwide, office/administrative support, sales, and food preparation are the industries employing the largest percentage of people. Finally, 60.7% of the respondents felt that homeschooling prepared them for the job while 14.6% said that it did not.
Appraisal: Since it’s been a while since we reviewed the last HARO installment, please remember that HARO’s sample is not representative of the homeschool community as a whole. Their convenience sample from homeschool support groups like Homeschoolers Anonymous only gives us insight into the experiences of homeschoolers who responded to online requests to take the survey, many of whom may have had negative experiences given self-selection. This installment about family and careers shows that the HARO sample is similar to the general population in a lot of ways; however, it is interesting that the marriage rate was so much higher even among the respondents who no longer identified as Christian.
Readers interested in this issue may want to consult two similar studies, both of which draw from randomized samples, which means that the findings are more likely to be representative of the actual homeschooling population. Sikkink and Skiles, summarizing two phases of the Cardus Education Survey, found that homeschoolers’ marriage and divorce patterns were nearly indistinguishable from those of the general population, though they tended to espouse more conservative views about marriage. In their work lives homeschoolers in the Cardus sample were less likely than others to seek jobs that helped society, to seek friendships on the job, or to give their work any religious meaning. Uecker and Hill, also using the Cardus data, found that homeschoolers looked very much like public schoolers in their marriage and child-bearing patterns, which means that they have a lower overall marriage rate than do graduates of private religious schools.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in reviews are not the official views of ICHER or of its members. For more information about ICHER’s Reviews, please see the «About these Reviews» Section.