In the Dayton (Ohio) Literacy Project, female welfare recipients in adult basic education meet with college students to increase the women's reading, writing, and speaking skills and help them come to think of themselves as "knowers." (SK)

A study of women who went off welfare between 1997 and 1998 (n=753, 693) showed that those with the most work involvement over the year had higher levels of financial and subjective well-being. Regardless of work involvement, substantial numbers reported serious economic difficulties and financial strain. Many still needed income supplements and…

Interviews with seven women before and 6 months after leaving welfare revealed barriers to self-sufficiency (low wages, lack of advancement opportunities in jobs, confusion about program regulations) and survival strategies (continued reliance on income and family support, banking of care benefits under the 5-year limit as a safety net). (SK)

A sociolinguistic analysis was conducted of a job-training program for female welfare recipients that simulated construction work sites. The instructor encouraged trainee responsibility for learning. Negotiation and purposeful talk helped develop competence. (SK)

Suggests that poor U.S. women and children are marked by signs of discipline and punishment that cannot be erased. These are systematically produced through current forces of socialization and discipline and 18th-century exhibitions of public mutilation. Poor single welfare mothers and their children are physically inscribed, punished, and…

The authors explored the relationship among childhood sexual abuse (CSA), physical and mental health work barriers, and employment outcomes using a large panel study of current and former welfare recipients. Controlling for human capital and demographic characteristics, they found CSA was associated with significantly fewer months worked over the…

Little guidance exists about how to tailor empowerment and resistance sexual assault programming to be responsive to varying groups of women. Using an investigation of 415 college women who completed a self-administered survey about a range of sexually aggressive experiences by a known male assailant, this investigation tested for distinct…

Poverty remains a persistent problem for many women, and certain features of American life serve to keep them in a disadvantaged economic position. The welfare system is so arranged that many of its programs (such as the Work Incentive Program) favor men or (as in the case of Aid to Families with Dependent Children) force poor women to place their…

This report examines the impact of the 1996 Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) on the college enrollment of welfare recipients who completed high school. The report highlights the lower college enrollment rates among recipients in the post-Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) period and notes the impact…

Women Working Technical is a six-month training course to place women in entry-level jobs in electronics. It was designed for women who are displaced homemakers, single parents, and/or recipients of public assistance. (JOW)

This study builds on research that examines the effects of microenterprise on poor women in the United States. Household income, income from the business, and poverty status were examined over time and comparisons were drawn among three groups of women: low-income women who participated in one of seven U.S. microenterprise assistance programs;…

The promotion of marriage and two-parent families as a strategy to reduce welfare dependency continues to be a major public policy goal of the 1996 welfare reform. Based on the assumption that women will marry employed men and that their earnings will lift poor mothers and their children from public dependency, this objective raises important…

Considerable research has been done on the relationship between Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) benefits and family structure. Evidence based on cross-state variation in welfare benefits and family structure indicates some nonzero effect of those benefits on marriage and fertility. It shows that time-series trends in family…

Data from a stratified random sample of 953 low-income urban women were analyzed to determine how they find jobs and the effect it has on subsequent earnings. Results show that although most find jobs through informal contacts, this has no effect on earnings. Those who recently left welfare were more likely to find jobs through formal sources.…

Describes Project ESTEEM, a program to help single mothers on welfare become self-sufficient. It combines one course--banking and finance--with the basics of how to look for and find a job. (JOW)