We investigated the widely held premise that welfare participation causes women to refrain from marriage. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,219), we employed an event history approach to study transitions to marriage among mothers who have had a nonmarital birth. We found that welfare participation reduces the…

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…

This document focuses on how states can use Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds to support early childhood education initiatives. It draws on CLASP's previous report, "Financing Universal Pre-Kindergarten: Possibilities and Technical Issues for States in Using Funds Under the Child Care and Development Fund and Temporary…

Social welfare programs contribute to Black women's decisions to terminate their marriages by modifying existing beliefs and values, giving rise to a perception of welfare as a more viable alternative to marital relationships. But welfare is insufficient to enable the maintenance of Black women's preseparation standard of living. (RDN)

This article demonstrates a novel application of propensity score matching techniques: to estimate nonexperimental impacts on program participants within the context of an experimental research design. The author examines the relationship between program participation, defined as qualifying for an earnings supplement by working full-time, and…

Many proposals for welfare reform center on the issue of marriage-based families versus single-parent families and oversimplify the relationship between single-parenting and poverty. Research done in upstate rural New York among low-income families showed that personal and economic characteristics of married and single mothers were similar as to…

Asserting that the welfare reform proposals of the mid-1990s drew attention to the problem of domestic violence among individuals receiving public assistance who are among the poorest of the poor, this report examines what is known from past research on domestic violence that may inform policies related to marriage and child well-being. In…

This paper summarizes changes in key elements of welfare policy and in closely related policies on child support enforcement and sex education and family planning programs. Drawing on a conceptual framework that highlights how incentives created by public policy can affect demographic behaviors, the paper concludes that, as Congress intended,…

Analyzed data from National Longitudinal Survey of Youth to determine whether impact of adolescent childbearing on women's subsequent contact with welfare system differed for Black women and White women (n=1,894). Results supported hypothesized patterns of association between early birth, educational attainment, years spent as single parent, years…

Notes that many from across the ideological spectrum suggest that welfare reform address policies that promote marriage and two-parent families. Discusses marriage, family structure and economic well-being, the benefits of marriage for adults and children, and low-income unwed mothers and marriage. Suggests that marriage and two-parent families…