Multigenerational coresidence and welfare policy

Abstract

As part of the 1996 federal welfare reform, lawmakers required unmarried, minor parents to live with their own parents (or another qualified adult). This paper considers a few key issues related to this requirement: 1) prior to the living arrangements requirement, did income from Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) lead teenage mothers to move out of their parents' home? 2) did young mothers who stayed at home do better or worse than their peers who moved out? and 3) how solid is the research evidence about these topics? Measurement barriers in census data prior to the mid‐1980s and in state program administrative data, in the past and still today, impede identification of all teenage parents who live at home. Yet, even given this undercount, available data indicates that most unmarried, minor mothers lived with their parents, or other adult relatives, prior to the 1996 welfare reform. Although the research base on the topic is small, there is not clear evidence that the small fraction of young mothers who moved out of their parents' home did so because they could access AFDC income. Consistent descriptive evidence does suggest that living in a three‐generational household is associated with teenage mothers' greater economic self‐sufficiency; at the same time, however, coresiding teenage mothers appear to exhibit poorer parenting skills and the effects on their children and their own parents remain little understood. These findings are discussed in relation to the minor parent residence policy, and recommendations for future research are made including: 1) collection of data that better identifies minor parent families living in senior parents' households; 2) using whole‐family perspectives that look beyond the minor mother to the well‐being of her parents, children, and other family members; 3) studies that consider the selection of teenage mothers into various living arrangements when studying their consequences, and 4) intensive studies of positive and negative aspects of family functioning and social networks when minor mothers live in various arrangements. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Breastfeeding Initiation and Duration in Coresident Grandparent, Mother and Infant Households

“…If a grandparent provides additional economic resources to the household, mothers may be able to purchase services, such as lactation consultants or breast pumps, which promote breastfeeding. Studies have documented that coresidence is linked with more financial, practical and emotional assistance [21]. If grandparents help take care of the infant, other children, or household tasks, the mother may have more time and energy to breastfeed.…”

“…Similar to a mother’s partner, grandparents may also provide social or emotional support [21, 24] that could similarly increase breastfeeding. An extensive body of literature has studied the role of social support in breastfeeding initiation and duration and found that mother’s partners, friends and parents play an important role in encouraging breastfeeding [25–29].…”

Potential Positive and Negative Consequences of Coresidence for Teen Mothers and their Children in Adult-Supervised Households

“…However, this study was unable to control for financial resources, which may be reflected in HOME scores. Wasserman et al (1990) compared HOME scores while controlling for financial resources (Gordon 1999). In this case, HOME scores for Black and Hispanic mothers coresiding with a partner were higher than scores for similar mothers in other living situations (grandmothers, other adults, alone).…”

“…This employment potential should increase economic self-sufficiency and decrease dependence on the welfare system. In addition, policymakers suggested that the guidance of living at home would benefit teen mothers, who may have previously used AFDC monies to establish their own residences away from their parents; thus, living in an isolated environment for which they were unprepared (Gordon 1999).…”

The Utility of the HOME-SF Scale for Child Development Research in a Large National Longitudinal Survey: The National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1979 Cohort

“…Some other relatively popular topics include early childbearing, siblings in the home, and child care arrangement. In recent years, the range of topics has expanded to include: explorations of welfare access on the HOME environment and implications for child development (Gordon, 1999;Hao, 1995;Knox,1996); how dimensions of the home environment can impact child health, including accident propensities 268 MOTT (Agre, Sambamoorthi, & Crystal, 1996;J. A. Mott, 1999); and depression (Agre, 2000) separating the influence of genetic versus environmental influences on child development (Cleveland, Jacobson, Lipinski, & Rowe, 2000); and the impact of punishment on children (Eamon, 2001;Eamon & Zuehl, 2001;Strauss, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997).…”