State-level Welfare Policies and Nonmarital Subsequent Childbearing

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.     

The impact of welfare reform on marriage and divorce

The goal of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was to end needy parents' dependence on governmental benefits, in part by promoting marriage. The prereform welfare system was widely believed to discourage marriage because it provided benefits primarily to single mothers. However, welfare reform may have actually decreased the incentives to be married by giving women greater financial independence via the program's new emphasis on work. This article uses vital statistics data on marriages and divorces during 1989-2000 to examine the role of welfare reform (state waivers and implementation of Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) and other state-level variables on flows into and out of marriage. The results indicate that welfare reform has led to fewer new divorces and fewer new marriages, although the latter result is sensitive to specification and the choice of data.     

Capping Kids: The Family Cap and Nonmarital Childbearing

An explicit goal of policymakers in drafting welfare reform policies was to reduce incentives for nonmarital childbearing. This paper estimates the extent to which state welfare reforms have lowered age and race-specific nonmarital fertility. Using state-level data from 1984 to 1999—a time period that includes the passage and implementation of national welfare reform—we estimate fixed effects models corrected for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. We find evidence that the family cap, a policy that decreases or eliminates the incremental increase in benefits for mothers who have an additional child while on welfare, is associated with a decline in nonmarital birth ratios. However, we also find that the family cap is associated with higher marital birth rates. Taken together with other research, our findings suggest evidence of policy endogeneity.

Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

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.     

Welfare work requirements and child well-being: Evidence from the effects on breast-feeding

A central theme of welfare reform is that recipients are required to engage in work activities. In many states, these work requirements apply to mothers whose children are a few months old, which may increase the costs and decrease the prevalence of breast-feeding. Given the substantial benefits of breast-feeding, any reduction represents an important negative consequence of these requirements. Our results suggest that in the absence of welfare reform, the national breast-feeding rate six months after birth would have been 5.5% higher in 2000. Such negative consequences of these policies must be weighed against potential benefits as states refine their welfare programs.     

Attitudes of welfare recipients toward marriage and childbearing

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.     

Immigrant and native responses to welfare reform

We investigate the effect of welfare reform in the US on the employment and hours of work of low-educated foreign-born and native-born women. For foreign-born women, we investigate whether the effect of welfare reform differed by year of immigration. We also examine whether the immigrant provisions of welfare reform had a chilling effect on those who remained eligible for benefits. Results suggest that welfare reform induced low-educated women to increase their labor market attachment; reform had larger effects on the least educated native-born women and among foreign-born, larger effects on more recent arrivals. The chilling hypothesis is not supported.All correspondence to Robert Kaestner. The authors thank Lynn Karoly, Christoph Schmidt, seminar participants at the University of Illinois and New School University, and several anonymous referees for comments on a previous draft of this paper. Robert Kaestner is grateful to the Luce Foundation for partial support for this research. Responsible editor: Christoph M. Schmidt.     

Race,work, and welfare: Attitudes toward the required employment of young mothers who use welfare

This study examines the views of blacks and whites toward the required employment of mothers who have young children and who use welfare. Using national survey data collected in 1988, attitudes toward these women are analyzed as a function of sociodemographic characteristics and various measures of inequality-related beliefs. Findings indicate that blacks are more likely than whites to agree that mothers using welfare should work in exchange for their benefits, although neither racial group overwhelmingly approves of such an exchange. Further, black attitudes are influenced more by economic self interest and other sociodemographic attributes than by stratification beliefs and the perceived consequences of welfare, the reverse is true for whites. The policy implications of these and other results for research on policy attitudes are discussed.This article is based on a paper, presented at the Southern Sociological Society meetings in Chattanooga, TN, 3 April 1993.     

Assessing immigrant policy options: Labor market conditions and postreform declines in immigrants’ receipt of welfare

Researchers infrequently have focused on assessing the degree to which the changes in welfare policy legislated during the 1990s have affected immigrants' receipt of welfare. Using data from the March Current Population Survey, we analyze the contribution of local labor market conditions to the explanation of relative declines in immigrants' receipt of welfare from 1994 to 2000. The results of a series of models that included labor market-area and state fixed effects indicate that employment and unemployment rates across metropolitan statistical areas and states account for at least one-third of the observed relative decrease among immigrants. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.     

Welfare generosity, pregnancies and abortions among unmarried AFDC recipients

Even before the 1996 overhaul of the U.S. welfare system, a number of states had ended the practice of paying extra benefits to families who have additional children while receiving welfare. Proponents believe that this reform can reduce births to recipients, however many worry that it may encourage women to obtain abortions. Using a sample of unmarried AFDC recipients from the NLSY, we estimate a bivariate probit model of pregnancy and, conditional on becoming pregnant, the probability of abortion. Our results lend some support for the proposition that reducing incremental AFDC benefits will decrease pregnancies without increasing abortions. Received: 16 April 1998/Accepted: 11 March 1999     

Good for the Common Good: Sociotropic Concern and Double Standards toward High- and Low-Skilled Immigrants in Six Wealthy Countries

Immigration policy has conventionally implied a double standard, in which high-skilled immigrants are more acceptable due to their potential contribution to the national economy, little welfare burden, and better cultural adaption, while low-skilled ones are not favored, because of a belief in their limited contribution to the common good. In contrast to the egocentric interest explanation, we emphasize the importance of such sociotropic concerns and suggest that acceptance of immigrants with different skill levels is an outcome of perceived growth and distributional impacts or threatened cultural boundaries. Drawing data from the 2011 Transatlantic Trends: Immigration survey, we performed seemingly unrelated regression modelling to compare natives’ attitudinal responses in six wealthy countries. We found that in addition to the evidence that high-skilled immigrants are favored over low-skilled ones, the worry about welfare burden to the nation is one of the main factors causing locals to dislike low-skilled immigrants. The public who perceive immigrants’ threats to the national economy in terms of taking jobs away in general are also likely to disfavor high-skilled immigrants. Expectations of cultural assimilation are somewhat detached from acceptance of high-skilled immigrants. As the research results imply clear limitation of the double-standard perspective, we propose a new scheme for understanding both double- and single-standard views and incorporate these variations into the sociotropic theory and future research design.

     

The new German citizenship law and its impact on German demographics: research notes

The processes of marginalization and inclusion of immigrants vary widely among industrialized welfare states. Models of citizenship, as a mechanism of both inclusion and exclusion, shape, to a large degree, the outcome of these processes. They affect the way immigrant and ethnic groups identify themselves within the mainstream society. This research note discusses whether or not institutional approaches to naturalization developed in the United States apply to the German case in the wake of the German citizenship reform of 1999. It also demonstrates how the introduction of birthright citizenship has caused a dramatic change in such demographic trends as the number of births to immigrants at both the federal and local levels. Berlin will provide the context at the local level for the impact of the citizenship reform on local official statistics.     

Family cap provisions and changes in births and abortions

As part of welfare reform efforts in the 1990s, 23 states implemented family caps, provisions that deny or reduce cash assistance to welfare recipients who have additional births. We use birth and abortion records from 24 states to estimate effects of family caps on birth and abortion rates. We use age, marital status, and completed schooling to identify women at high risk for use of public assistance, and parity (number of previous live births) to identify those most directly affected by the family cap. In family cap states, birth rates fell more and abortion rates rose more among high-risk women with at least one previous live birth compared to similar childless women, consistent with an effect of the family cap. However, this parity-specific pattern of births and abortions also occurred in states that implemented welfare reform with no family cap. Thus, the effects of welfare reform may have differed between mothers and childless women, but there is little evidence of an independent effect of the family cap.     

户籍制度改革的成本与收益估算：基于广东省的数据

户籍制度改革是中国当前的一项重大议题，制度改革的财政成本和收益迫切需要得到准确的估算。从人口迁移和福利磁力的研究视角出发，本文聚焦于制度改革的社会救助福利成本与收益，在估算公式中纳人了区域福利水平差距、劳动者定居比率和福利迁移比率等数据指标进行估算。估算结果表明：现阶段制度改革的高昂财政负担和我国相对紧张的财政状况，使制度改革只能遵循渐进的方式进行，目前仍不具备立即推行全面改革的足够空间。     

Family cap provisions and changes in births and abortions

As part of welfare reform efforts in the 1990s, 23 states implemented family caps, provisions that deny or reduce cash assistance to welfare recipients who have additional births. We use birth and abortion records from 24 states to estimate effects of family caps on birth and abortion rates. We use age, marital status, and completed schooling to identify women at high risk for use of public assistance, and parity (number of previous live births) to identify those most directly affected by the family cap. In family cap states, birth rates fell more and abortion rates rose more among high-risk women with at least one previous live birth compared to similar childless women, consistent with an effect of the family cap. However, this parity-specific pattern of births and abortions also occurred in states that implemented welfare reform with no family cap. Thus, the effects of welfare reform may have differed between mothers and childless women, but there is little evidence of an independent effect of the family cap.     

Work disability and migration in the early years of welfare reform

The inter- and intra-state migration of American families with work-disabled members is a neglected area of empirical study. Longitudinal migration and health status data from the 1996 Panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) are merged with state-level welfare policy indicators to investigate migration behavior under welfare reform’s emphasis on requiring work and encouraging reliance on social support networks. We use a nested discrete-choice event history model that incorporates the departure decision and interstate destination choice in a single model that tests the effects of state-level welfare policy and economic opportunity characteristics, with state fixed effects, plus family sociodemographic characteristics and social networks, as the basis for comparing migration of families with and without work disabilities. The results show that although families with disabilities and illnesses are less likely to migrate than other families generally, they are “pushed” to migrate if they live in states that do not exempt them from TANF activities requirements. Furthermore, in-migration is inhibited by stringent state welfare illness exemption rules and high state unemployment rates. Intrastate migration is more likely among families who received family and community social support, regardless of work-disability status.     

The foster care crisis: What caused caseloads to grow

Foster care caseloads more than doubled from 1985 to 2000. This article provides the first comprehensive study of this growth by relating state-level foster care caseloads to state-specific characteristics and policies. We present evidence that increases in female incarcerations and reductions in cash welfare benefits played dominant roles in explaining the growth in foster care caseloads over this period. Our results highlight the need for child welfare policies designed specifically for the children of incarcerated parents and parents who are facing less generous welfare programs.     

Welfare benefits and birth decisions of never-married women

For some time now, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been increasing rapidly in the United States. This has prompted several states to propose (and in some cases, enact) legislation to deny access to higher AFDC benefits for families in which the mother gives birth while receiving AFDC. The authors investigate whether AFDC benefit levels are systematically related to the family-size decisions of never-married women. Using a bivariate probit model with state and time fixed effects, applied to Current Population Survey data for the years 1980–1988, it is found that the basic benefit level for a family of two (one adult and one child) and the incremental benefit for a second child positively affects the family size decisions of black and Hispanic women, but not of white women. The effects are concentrated among high school dropouts (no effects are found for high school graduates). The authors conclude that rather than to uniformly deny benefits to all AFDC women that bear children, a better targeted policy might be to alter the AFDC benefit structure in such a way as to encourage single mothers to complete high school. However, being a high school dropout might be a proxy for some other underlying characteristic of the woman, and encouraging women to complete high school who otherwise would not might have no effect whatsoever on nonmarital births.     

Welfare and the Children of Immigrants: Transmission of Dependence or Investment in the Future?

The public concern that immigrant families might be using a disproportionate share of social benefits and transmitting some form of public dependency to their children, combined with the rising levels of immigrants entering the country, fueled the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, which limited public assistance to many immigrant families. This paper uses the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 to explore the association between exposure to welfare and young adult outcomes of high school graduation, college enrollment and labor force participation with a focus on parental nativity status as well as broad country of origin group. Results indicate a persistent negative association between welfare legacy and high school graduation; a negative association that is most pronounced for children of natives. Results also show the largest positive effect of welfare receipt among the most disadvantaged group, the young adult children of immigrants from Mexican and Central American countries. The main finding of this study suggests that the negative impacts of welfare receipt might be lessened and in some cases reversed among the young adults from immigrant families. Such findings challenge the common notion that immigrant families use welfare as a crutch across generations and raise serious concern about U.S. immigration and welfare policies.     

Will workfare work? Job availability for welfare recipients in rural and urban America

Ongoing concern over welfare dependency has stimulated the US Government to enact welfare reform legislation that features work requirements. Under the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996, millions of able-bodied welfare recipients will now be expected to find work within two years. We analyze data from the March 1994 Current Population Survey to address the neglected question of whether a sufficient number of jobs will be available for those looking for work. Using two methods to estimate job availability, and a variety of assumptions about which welfare recipients will be required to work, we estimate that as few as 18 and as many as 54 welfare recipients and other unemployed individuals would be competing for each available job. Separate analyses by residence provided equivocal evidence on whether metropolitan or nonmetropolitan welfare recipients will have the more difficult time finding gainful employment.