Latchkey kids: Less common than thought

A new study on latchkey children reports that there are far fewer children in self-care than originally thought.

About 2.1 million or 7 percent of U.S. children aged 5 through 13 years are not supervised by an adult after school, according to a team of demographers from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD). About 2.4 million children are in self-care before school, after school or at night, or are in the care of someone younger than 14 years old. Earlier reports had estimated that as many as 7 to 15 million children are unsupervised after school.

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