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.

The effects of family caps on the subsequent fertility decisions of never-married mothers

Family caps seek to reduce fertility among welfare recipients by denying additional cash assistance to recipients who have children while on welfare. A necessary condition for family caps to be an effective policy tool is that welfare recipients respond to financial incentives in making decisions that affect subsequent fertility outcomes. This paper uses data from the 2001 and 2004 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine whether welfare mothers respond to the incentive provided by the Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (AFDC/TANF) system in determining whether or not to have a second child. The results show no evidence that family caps have an effect on the subsequent childbearing of never married women.

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.     

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 dependent tax exemption,abortion availability,and US fertility rates

The impact of the personal income tax dependent exemption, abortion availability, and other factors on fertility rates is analyzed. US time series data for 1915–88 are used in the empirical model. The results indicate that greater abortion availability in the USA is associated with lower fertility. A higher value of the dependent exemption generally is associated with higher fertility, but the magnitude and significance of the effect is sensitive to specification choice. The results suggest that restricting abortion availability in the USA will increase the fertility rate, but a change in the tax value of the dependent exemption will have a less predictable impact on fertility.     

Estimates of the abortion demand of young and older teenagers

This study estimates the demand for abortion by younger (ages 15–17) and older (ages 18–19) teenagers. The empirical results show, for both age groups, abortion demand is price inelastic and a normal good with respect to income. Teenage abortion demand is also found to be positively related to labor force participation and state Medicaid funding and negatively related to religiosity and unemployment. State family planning programs, AFDC benefits, and parental involvement laws are found not to be significant determinants of teenage abortion demand.     

Family income at the bottom and at the top: Income sources and family characteristics

Attention has recently been focused on wealth as a source of long-term economic security and on wealth ownership as a crucial aspect of the racial economic divisions in the United States. This literature, however has been concerned primarily with the wealth gap between poor and middle-class families, and between the white and black middle class. In this paper, we investigate the incomes of families at the top and bottom of the family income distribution. We examine the sources of income and the demographic characteristics of these high-income and low-income families using family level data from the 1988 to 2003 Current Population Surveys.     

Welfare states, family inequality, and equality of opportunity

Why have countries like Sweden, Norway, Denmark been somewhat more successful than others in terms of creating conditions that foster equality of opportunity? I argue that there are two characteristics of the social-democratic welfare state that have played a role, namely lower social and economic inequality and family policies aimed at equalizing conditions for children during their formative years. It is clear, however, that inequality of opportunity remains an important part of the social landscape in these societies. This is because it is difficult if not impossible to equalize the cultural and social capital of families through public policy.     

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.     

Welfare reform and changes in the economic well-being of children*

Since the implementation of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in late-1996, welfare rolls have declined by more than half. This paper explores whether improvements in the economic well-being of children have accompanied this dramatic reduction in welfare participation. Further, we examine the degree to which the success or failure of welfare reform has been shared equally among families of varying educational background. We analyze data from the March Current Population Surveys (CPS) over the years 1988 through 2001. Specifically, we link data for families with children who are interviewed in adjacent years and determine whether their economic circumstances either improved or deteriorated. We use two alternative approaches to address this general issue: a variety of regression models and a difference-in-differences methodology. These approaches provide consistent answers. In a bivariate framework TANF is associated with higher incomes; but this association becomes insignificant in the presence of business cycle controls. We also determine that children who were poor at an initial time period benefit differently, depending on their parents' educational attainment level. Poor children with parents who do not have a high school degree are significantly worse off in the TANF era, relative to the era prior to welfare reform, than are poor children of more educated parents.     

欧盟国家人口老龄化及其对社会经济政策的影响

在未来 15年里 ,欧盟国家人口年龄结构将发生很大的变化 ,其中老年人口尤其高龄人口群 (80岁及以上 )比例增加较快。持续的低生育率和不断延长的人口预期寿命是加快人口老龄化进程的根本原因。人口老龄化带来一系列的社会经济影响 ,主要反映在劳动力资源及相关政策 ,老年福利制度 ,养老金制度 ,健康照料制度和移民政策等方面。     

The need for family planning

The purpose of this paper is to examine the evidence on the need for family planning. The available evidence on current levels of unmet need for contraceptives, fertility preferences, and the non-contraceptive benefits of family planning is reviewed. I argue that expansion of family planning programs is still needed. These programs provide couples with tools to reach their desired family size; can significantly impact maternal and child mortality by decreasing fertility and optimizing child spacing; and by decreasing fertility, slow population growth. It is therefore imperative to continue to expand the provision of family planning services.     

Gender discrimination and efficiency in marriage: the bargaining family under scrutiny

We consider a repeated family bargaining model that links the topics of employment and households. A key aspect of the model is that marital bargaining power is determined endogenously. We show that: (1) the efficiency of household decisions is sometimes inversely related to the prevailing degree of gender discrimination in labor markets; (2) women who are discriminated against have difficulty enforcing cooperative household outcomes because they may be extremely limited to credibly punish opportunistic behavior by their male partners; (3) the likelihood that sharing rules such as “equal sharing” are maintained throughout a marriage relationship is highest when men and women face equal opportunities in labor markets. Responsible editor: Deborah Cobb-Clark     

Conservation and family planning in Tanzania: the TACARE experience

Community-based distribution (CBD) programs present an alternative way of effectively reaching people in rural areas of developing countries where conventional methods of delivery do not exist or fail. This paper reviews the experience and findings from the Jane Goodall Institute’s (JGI) TACARE program in the Kigoma region of Tanzania. It focuses on the family planning CBD program and its integration within the TACARE program to meet the broader mission of JGI’s conservation efforts. Both qualitative and survey data suggest that the CBD program meets the needs for contraception in participating rural communities and is a complementary and acceptable strategy to ultimately contribute to reduce population pressure on the villages around Gombe National Park.     

Family matters: the role of the family in immigrants' destination language acquisition

Studies of immigrants' destination language acquisition to date have focused on the individual. In contrast, this paper is concerned with the relationships among family members in the determinants of destination language proficiency among immigrants. A model of immigrant language proficiency is augmented to include dynamics among family members. It is tested using data on a sample of recent immigrants. Children are shown to have a negative effect on their mother's language proficiency, but no effect on their father's. There is a substantial positive correlation between the language skills of spouses. This is due to the correlation between spouses in both the measured and the unmeasured determinants of destination language skills, even when country of origin fixed effects are held constant.

Birth order matters: the effect of family size and birth order on educational attainment

Using the British Household Panel Survey, we investigate if family size and birth order affect children’s subsequent educational attainment. Theory suggests a trade-off between child quantity and “quality” and that siblings are unlikely to receive equal shares of parental resources devoted to children’s education. We construct a new birth order index that effectively purges family size from birth order and use this to test if siblings are assigned equal shares in the family’s educational resources. We find that the shares are decreasing with birth order. Ceteris paribus, children from larger families have less education, and the family size effect does not vanish when we control for birth order. These findings are robust to numerous specification checks.

From humor to horror: genre and narrative purpose in abortion stories on American television

A recent increase in the number of comedic films and television programs that include abortion stories has prompted a cultural conversation about whether this is an appropriate treatment for such a topic: Can abortions be funny? Are there any genres that should not include plotlines about abortion? Indeed, most prior examinations of abortion on television have focused on dramas and their impact, without explicitly exploring the ways different genres offer a range of types of stories and creative opportunities. Using a comprehensive data-set of abortion plotlines on American television, this analysis provides a historical overview of how varying genres have addressed abortion in the past, as well as closer case studies within each of five genres: drama, soap opera, horror, science fiction, and comedy. This paper provides insight into the different narrative functions of abortion stories, with consideration of how such narratives support (in)accurate and (de)stigmatizing cultural ideas about abortion.     

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.     

The determinants and consequences of child care subsidies for single mothers in the USA

This paper provides an analysis of child care subsidies under welfare reform in the USA. We used data from the 1999 National Survey of America's Families to analyze the determinants of receipt of a child care subsidy and the effects of subsidy receipt on employment, school attendance, unemployment, and welfare participation. Ordinary least-squares estimates that treat subsidy receipt as exogenous show an effect of subsidy receipt on employment of about 13 percentage points. Two-stage least-squares estimates that treat subsidy receipt as endogenous and use county dummies as identifying instruments show an effect of 33 percentage points on employment, 20 percentage points on unemployment, and no effects on schooling and welfare receipt.