Consequences of Welfare Reform: A Research Synthesis

Grogger, Jeffrey; Karoly, Lynn A.; Klerman, Jacob Alex

doi:10.7249/dru2676

Cited by 139 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…TANF did prove to be successful on the economic side, at least when measured in transitions from welfare to work (Grogger et al 2002). Experience with these policies thus affords the opportunity to test the thesis that transferring financial responsibility will influence attitudes toward and behaviors surrounding marriage and childbearing.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…To date, most research suggests that welfare reforms have had only small and mixed impacts on family formation outcomes. Random assignment evaluations have tended to find little effect on welfare recipients in the aggregate and sometimes puzzling patterns across subgroups (Fein et al 2002;Gennetian & Knox 2003;Grogger et al 2002). Non-experimental analyses also have found inconsistent evidence for the wider low-income population (Bitler et al 2002;Kaestner et al 2003;Levine 2002;Schoeni & Blank 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

Mauldon

London

Fein

et al. 2004

Population Research and Policy Review

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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.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

Mauldon

London

Fein

et al. 2004

Population Research and Policy Review

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“…The 458 women in our sample had a total of 247 births in this time period. The small number of births is not surprising, given that additional childbearing while on welfare is not that common (Grogger et al, 2002) and that 58% of the sample already had two or more births at the beginning of their risk period.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…In Arizona and New Jersey programs with family cap policies, there was evidence of reduced birth rates among some subgroups of welfare participants (Grogger et al, 2002;Jagannathan & Camasso, 2003), but also a troubling increase in abortions for one sample (Camasso et al, 1998a(Camasso et al, , 1998b. However, in the New Jersey and Arkansas studies, concerns about the random assignment process, sample size and representativeness, attrition, short follow-up periods, and similar services and information being provided to both the experimental and the control groups cast doubt on the studies' conclusions (Fein et al, 2002;Loury, 2001;Rossi, 2001).…”

Section: Experimental Evaluations Of the Family Capmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…These restrictions were important because they limited our analyses to exactly the group to whom the welfare laws are targeted-women receiving public assistance. We did not limit the sample only to women currently on welfare because welfare policies are expected to also affect the childbearing decisions of those women at risk of becoming welfare-dependent (Grogger et al, 2002). We also excluded women who were not part of an original PSID core family because they did not have sample weights.…”

Section: Samplementioning

confidence: 99%

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State-level Welfare Policies and Nonmarital Subsequent Childbearing

Ryan

Manlove

Hofferth

2006

Popul Res Policy Rev

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Using discrete time event history analyses of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), we examine the association between state-level welfare waiver policies implemented before the 1996 welfare reform legislation and the risk of a nonmarital subsequent birth. Our study makes a unique contribution to the existing literature by using a national-level sample of unmarried mothers who ever received welfare. This high-risk sample represents the women of most interest to policymakers, as it is the exact group to whom welfare reform is targeted—welfare mothers at risk of having nonmarital additional births. The state policies we study include: family cap, earnings disregard, work exemptions, work requirements, and sanctions. We conclude that, although reducing the number of nonmarital births is a key goal of welfare reform, state-established welfare waiver policies do not have any influence on women’s childbearing behaviors in this sample, net of women’s individual characteristics and state economic environments. Even the family cap policy, which was designed for the sole purpose of reducing additional births, has no significant association with nonmarital subsequent childbearing. Instead, personal characteristics, not public policies, are stronger determinants of women’s childbearing decisions. Age, race/ethnicity, marital status, number of previous children, education level, and welfare receipt are significantly associated with nonmarital subsequent births. Overall, this paper contributes to an expanding body of research that shows minimal effects of welfare waivers on fertility. Our work suggests that more targeted policies are necessary to be able to influence individual family formation behaviors. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2006Family cap, Fertility, Nonmarital childbearing, Welfare,

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Welfare to work interventions and their effects on health and well-being of lone parents and their children

Gibson

Thomson

Banas

et al. 2012

Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews

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Consequences of Welfare Reform: A Research Synthesis

Cited by 139 publications

References 54 publications

Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

State-level Welfare Policies and Nonmarital Subsequent Childbearing

Welfare to work interventions and their effects on health and well-being of lone parents and their children

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