Indicator: 78 - Perception of Communities as a Good Place to Raise Children

Why This Is Important

Parents and families who raise children have a stake in making their community a good place to do that. Communities that keep children and families at the heart of all decisions engage families in building better communities.

Where We Stand

In 2001, a sample of Maine parents was asked: "How would you rate your community as a place to raise children?" The vast majority (90%) responded that their community is either an "excellent" or a "good" place to do that. The percentage making this judgment tended to rise slightly with income, though it was high (over 70%) for all income brackets. The same questions was also asked of adults in a Maine survey the previous year; the percentage of those respondents who expressed the same positive opinion was nearly as high as for the parents alone in 2001 (85%).

Data Sources and Context

Data for this indicator comes from the Maine Development Foundation 2000 and 2001 Surveys of Maine Citizens. The 2000 Survey was conducted in September 2000 by Market Decisions, Inc.; the 2001 Survey was done between August 20 and September 6, 2001, by Strategic Marketing Services. In both years a randomly selected statewide sample of 601 households was interviewed by telephone. Special effort was made to include an adequate number of parents with children living primarily at home (425 in 2001), so their responses are representative of all parents in Maine. However, because the number of parents in each of the income groups in the chart is comparatively small (especially for households with income below $15,000), those results are not necessarily representative of all parents in those income groups in Maine. Survey results are available on-line at http://www.mdf.org.