Background: US fruit and vegetable (FV) intake remains below recommendations, particularly for low-income populations. Evidence on effectiveness of rebates in addressing this shortfall is limited.Objective: This study evaluated the USDA Healthy Incentives Pilot (HIP), which offered rebates to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) participants for purchasing targeted FVs (TFVs). Design: As part of a randomized controlled trial in Hampden County, Massachusetts, 7500 randomly selected SNAP households received a 30% rebate on TFVs purchased with SNAP benefits. The remaining 47,595 SNAP households in the county received usual benefits. Adults in 5076 HIP and non-HIP households were randomly sampled for telephone surveys, including 24-h dietary recall interviews. Surveys were conducted at baseline (1-3 mo before implementation) and in 2 follow-up rounds (4-6 mo and 9-11 mo after implementation). 2784 adults (1388 HIP, 1396 non-HIP) completed baseline interviews; data were analyzed for 2009 adults (72%) who also completed $1 follow-up interview. Results: Regression-adjusted mean TFV intake at follow-up was 0.24 cup-equivalents/d (95% CI: 0.13, 0.34 cup-equivalents/d) higher among HIP participants. Across all fruit and vegetables (AFVs), regression-adjusted mean intake was 0.32 cup-equivalents/d (95% CI: 0.17, 0.48 cup-equivalents/d) higher among HIP participants. The AFV-TFV difference was explained by greater intake of 100% fruit juice (0.10 cup-equivalents/d; 95% CI: 0.02, 0.17 cup-equivalents/d); juice purchases did not earn the HIP rebate. Refined grain intake was 0.43 ounce-equivalents/d lower (95% CI: 20.69, 20.16 ounce-equivalents/d) among HIP participants, possibly indicating substitution effects. Increased AFV intake and decreased refined grain intake contributed to higher Healthy Eating Index-2010 scores among HIP participants (4.7 points; 95% CI: 2.4, 7.1 points). Conclusions: The HIP significantly increased FV intake among SNAP participants, closing w20% of the gap relative to recommendations and increasing dietary quality. More research on mechanisms of action is warranted. The HIP trial was registered at clinicaltrials.gov as NCT02651064.Am J Clin Nutr 2016;104:423-35.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. University of Wisconsin Press andThe Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Human Resources. ABSTRACT This paper examines a woman's decisions about when to return to market work in the two years following childbirth and the type of child care she chooses. Own wages relate positively to an early return to work, while higher family income delays return to work. Wages and income did not significantly affect choice of market versus nonmarket child care. Greater child care tax credits increased early return to work (within three months) but -had little effect on later labor supply. Contrary to expectations, tax credits did not affect child care choice, but predicted early market reentry.

No abstract

No abstract

In this paper, we propose and implement non-experimental matching/regression-adjustment methods in an attempt to isolate one of the potentially important reasons for across-program differences in training effects, namely that programs differ in the mix in and assignment of different types of training to the participants in its programs. The latter source of treatment heterogeneity and its potential consequences for across-program differences in training effects has been noted by Hotz, Imbens and Mortimer (2005) and others who have evaluated the effectiveness of training programs. We show how non-experimental matching and/or regression-adjustment methods can be used to estimate such differential effects and how data for a control group generated by random assignment can be use to partially assess the validity of such methods. Substantively, we use these methods and tests to re-analyze data from the MDRC Evaluation of California's welfare-to-work program in the 1990s, namely the Greater Avenues to Independence (GAIN) program. This experimental Evaluation found that, compared to other counties that stressed Human Capital Development (HCD) training strategies, Riverside county's GAIN program, which stressed getting program participants into jobs quickly through a Labor Force Attachment (LFA) training strategy, had relatively larger effects on post-random assignment employment, labor market earnings, and welfare participation. We apply matching/regression-adjustment methods and implement the partial tests of these methods noted above to these data to directly assess the short-and long-term differential impacts of these two training strategies and, thus, previous conclusions about the reasons for the success of the Riverside GAIN program.1

In the early 1990s, both state and federal governments enacted maternity-leave legislation. The key provision of that legislation is that after a leave of a limited duration, the recent mother is guaranteed the right to return to her preleave employer at the same or equivalent position. Using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we correlate work status after childbirth with work status before pregnancy to estimate the prevalence, before the legislation, of returns to the preleave employer. Among women working full-time before the pregnancy, return to the prepregnancy employer was quite common. Sixty percent of women who worked full-time before the birth of a child continued to work for the same employer after the child was born. Furthermore, the labor market behavior of most of the remaining 40% suggests that maternity-leave legislation is unlikely to have a major effect on job continuity. Compared with all demographically similar women, however, new mothers have an excess probability of leaving their jobs.

Employment of married mothers with preschool children rose dramatically between 1971 and 1990. Using CPS data, we find that about one-fifth of the increase in labor supply can be attributed to changes in mothers' demographic characteristics (age, education, and number of children). Changes in the earnings opportunities of new mothers and their husbands explain another one-fifth of the growth in employment. Over the two decades, infants up to three months old became less of a barrier to employment, while women's labor supply became more sensitive to their own earnings opportunities and less sensitive to those of their husbands.

No abstract