Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

Abstract

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunities Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) put the need for attitudinal change at the center of efforts to help welfare recipients become economically independent, avoid out-of-wedlock childbearing, and embrace marriage. In this paper, we focus specifically on attitudes, analyzing both differences in values and attitudes between welfare recipients and other women on the cusp of reform, as well as the effects of TANF reforms in two states on the attitudes and behaviors of women subject to the reforms. National data reveal few differences in values and attitudes between welfare recipients and other women once background characteristics are held constant. A majority of both groups believes that prospective parents should marry, but single parents can raise a child as well as married parents. Personal aspirations for marriage and further childbearing also are fairly similar. These similarities may be one reason that the literature has shown TANF to have limited effects on marriage and childbearing. A second set of analyses investigates the degree to which welfare recipients in Delaware and Indiana report that reforms affected their aspirations for marriage and childbearing. Self-reported impacts are greater for fertility than marriage attitudes. Even among those who report their attitudes were affected by reform, recipients appear to have difficulty acting on their marital and childbearing desires, dampening any effects on behavior. These findings reinforce the current sense among researchers and policy makers that more direct reforms are needed to have a substantial effect on marriage and out-of-wedlock childbearing.

High Hopes but Even Higher Expectations: The Retreat From Marriage Among Low‐Income Couples

“…Research indicates very few significant racial or class differences in attitudes regarding the importance of marriage or aspirations toward marriage, though marital expectations are somewhat lower among the more disadvantaged. Even 70% of welfare recipients—a population with average incomes well below the poverty threshold—say that they expect to marry (Mauldon et al, 2002). Qualitative data also indicate that support for marriage as an institution remains high among low‐income and minority women, although many voice serious doubts about the viability of marriage to their current partner (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Furstenberg, 2001).…”

Attitudes toward Traditional Marriage: A Comparison of TANF Recipients and a General Population of Adults

“…Personal experience has taught that the world of relationships is sometimes far less than ideal. The fundamental preferences regarding marriage do not match with the social circumstances in which people find themselves and thus the ideals they view for society as a whole may not reflect their reality (Mauldon et al, 2002). This separation of ideals and reality suggests that future researchers might consider asking questions regarding marriage in two sets: one set in which the respondents state their opinion for the population in general and one set in which they apply the question to their own situation.…”

“…The four purposes of TANF include the following: • assisting needy families so that children can be cared for in their own homes; • reducing the dependency of needy parents by promoting job preparation, work, and marriage; • preventing the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies; and • encouraging the formation and maintenance of two-parent families. Inclusion of these purposes in the revision of welfare policy suggested that policymakers felt that the attitudes toward marriage and views on family formation held by welfare recipients needed to be reformed, and that welfare policy was the appropriate venue to initiate such change (Mauldon, London, Fein, Patterson, & Bliss, 2002). haskins (2006) and rector (2005 championed the use of the TANF program as a vehicle to promote traditional views of family formation and marriage.…”

When Unwed Mothers Marry

“…They are more likely to be in higher order unions and to be separated or divorced, corroborating findings from a longitudinal study of African American teen mothers showing that their relationships with men tended to be "impermanent" (Furstenburg, Graefe, Lichter / When Unwed Mothers Marry Brooks-Gunn, & Morgan, 1987). And, whereas women's marital prospects clearly are shaped by their own characteristics and personal resources, including education (Gassman-Pines & Yoshikawa, 2006;Mauldon, London, Fein, Patterson, & Sommer, 2004), unwed childbearing nonetheless often leads to marriages with poorly educated men with low annual incomes. In other words, unwed mothers, if married, are less likely than other women to marry well, if measured in strictly economic terms.…”