Background: Early motherhood has been linked with a number of adverse outcomes, including mental health difficulties and barriers to completing educational qualifications and workforce participation. The present study examined the extent to which these linkages could be explained by the influence of social, family, and background factors that were…

Rebecca Blank explores a weakness of the welfare reforms of the mid-1990s--the failure of the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program to address the plight of so-called "hard to employ" single mothers and their children. TANF has moved many women on the welfare caseload into work, but the services it provides are not intensive or flexible…

Examined the relationship between the length of time worked by mothers receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children and three categories of variables. Only economic factors appeared to significantly affect the mothers' decision whether to work. (Author)

Such factors as a belief in individual freedom of choice, the support of minority groups' rights, and a concern for the psychological effects of mothering on children have tended to mitigate against a clear-cut advocacy of the employment of mothers under Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Two recent phenomena, however, have emerged…

Drawing on 1998-99 survey and ethnographic data from research on the implementation and effects of welfare reform in four large cities, this paper describes the food security of mother-headed families in highly disadvantaged urban neighborhoods who had received or currently receive cash welfare benefits. The families of four groups of women were…

Child care subsidies help low-income families work and leave welfare, but funding shortfalls are forcing states to enact restrictive policies that are hurting poor families and efforts to promote their employment and earnings. The Administration?s recently proposed FY 2005 budget would make this situation even worse, causing 447,000 children…

This report reviews the literature on the prevalence, treatment, and consequences of depression in low-income women with an emphasis on the relationship between depression and employment. Recent changes in welfare policy, such as the five-year lifetime limit on assistance and requiring recipients to obtain jobs after two years of continuous…

Using data from a longitudinal sample of former and current welfare recipients in Michigan spanning 1997 through 1999, the Womens Employment Study, this analysis examined how transitions from welfare to work affect parenting behavior and child behavior problems. Researchers used a fixed-effects regression design to control for all time-invariant…

Investigated household arrangements of adolescent mothers. Data from 1980 U.S. Census showed that arrangements varied by marital status, race/ethnicity, age, number of children, and central city residence. Found differences by race/ethnicity in how other variables related to household arrangements. Household arrangements were related to school…

Using the National Survey of Family Growth, we document nonmetropolitan and metropolitan single mothers? economic livelihood strategies. We have three objectives: (1) examine differences in employment, cohabitation, co-residence with other adults, and welfare receipt; (2) evaluate how these livelihood strategies are associated with economic…

In April 1996 the Board on Children, Youth, and Families and the Family and Child Well-Being Research Network convened their second annual research briefing on welfare and children's development. The briefing was intended to: (1) create a venue for productive exchange between researchers and policy makers; (2) maximize the usefulness of research…

Examined differences in divorced (n=1,916) and never-married (n=878) single mothers' decisions to participate in Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Divorced mothers were twice as likely to receive AFDC benefits as never-married mothers. Discusses differences in AFDC decision-making processes and suggests ways to move single mothers…

This report recommends that the Social Security Act Title XIX be amended to include a 24-month extension of Medicaid to families who become ineligible for cash assistance under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. This amendment accompanies the Family Welfare Reform Act of 1987 (H.R. 1720), which is proposed to replace the…

A study was conducted on the transition to adulthood among women, age fourteen through twenty-four, who were high school dropouts or who did not attend college immediately after high school. Data for 1968-73 was gathered in interviews and from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Labor Market Experience. The information obtained was related to the…

This volume is based on papers presented at a conference of social policy experts that looked at the growth in lone-parent families, the problems that have emerged, and their policy implications. Chapter 1 is an "Overview" (Duskin). Three chapters look at demographic trends over time and over the life-cycle; they are: "Demographic…