Determining Opportunity: The Need for Forming a Families Opportunity Index

Abstract

The relationship between families and communities are apparent in the opportunity available to the family unit. How a family fares in a community can have lasting effects, both generational and to the community that they are a part of. Measuring opportunity through an index is best practice because of its multi-dimensional aspect, however, no index exists when evaluating the opportunity of families. The nearest index to providing some indication is the Opportunity Index, but it also fails to capture the complexities that families contend with. Using the framework from the Opportunity Index, along with adding other markers of family opportunity based on research, a Families Opportunity Index was created to better quantify the opportunity of families for the counties of California. The new Families Opportunity Index includes added indicators for the Economy Dimension of the Index. By modifying the Economy Dimension to focus on data that would capture indicators that effect the most vulnerable of families, single parent families, and recently separated or divorced families, we can capture a more realistic picture of a family’s opportunity for each California county. The expectation is that the Families Opportunity Index will be used to inform better public policy for Families.