Achievement and Behavior Among Children of Welfare Recipients, Welfare Leavers, and Low-Income Single Mothers - Statistical Data Included

Journal of Social Issues, Winter, 2000 by Sandra L. Hofferth, Julia Smith, Vonnie C. McLoyd, Jonathan Finkeistein

Sandra L. Hofferth [*]

This article examines the behavior and achievement of children in female-headed families that were on welfare, that left welfare, and that were not on welfare in the 3 years preceding the study. Data come from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement, a nationally representative sample of children underage 13 collected in 1997. The results suggest that there are both positive and negative outcomes of welfare transitions. Based upon our results, children whose mothers are able to leave and remain off welfare score consistently better on cognitive tests of their development. The transition period, however, is a difficult one. Children's emotional well-being may suffer during the parental transition from cash assistance to self-sufficiency.

In 1996 Congress passed a major new welfare bill: the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The new legislation was designed to increase self-sufficiency through employment; increase private family support, such as child support; and change certain family formation behaviors, such as nonmarital childbearing and living arrangements (Sawhill, 1995). Recent research (Duncan, Harris, & Boisjoly, 1997; Pavetti, 1995) suggests that a significant proportion of families will be affected by the new bill's time limit on receipt of cash assistance. Of all Americans currently receiving welfare benefits, two thirds are children, and more than half of the children are under the age of 10 (Smith & Yeung, 1997).

A key aspect of the new policy is that recipients in many state programs are required to work immediately, to seek work, or to participate in other program activities. If they do not, their benefits can be reduced or terminated. These new public policies as well as a robust economy are credited with a major decline in public assistance caseloads in the 1990s (Wallace & Blank, 1999). Whether because they are discouraged from participating, because they are working off, or because they are being forced off, mothers are leaving the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program. Very little research has explored the potential impact of this new policy on children. What may happen to children as mothers leave cash assistance?

This article uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics Child Development Supplement to examine the behavior and achievement of children in female-headed families on welfare at the time of the study, children in female-headed families that left welfare in the year preceding the study, children in female-headed families that left welfare 1 to 3 years prior to the study, and children in female-headed families that were not on welfare in the 3 years preceding the study. Although these data were collected prior to the passage of PRWORA in 1996, they can provide information on the potential results of welfare reform post-1996, since many of the state waivers to AFDC policy implemented from 1994 through 1996 were similar to those passed in 1996 and could be expected to have similar effects. Additionally, we add controls for family emotional climate and parenting practices in these different family types to see to what extent such factors mediate the association between welfare status and child development.

Background

Substantial previous research has found that children from low-income families perform worse than children from higher income families on a set of indicators of academic achievement and behavior problems (Corcoran, 1995; Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; McLoyd, 1998). Less research has focused upon whether, among families with similar incomes, welfare is detrimental or helpful. On some measures children in welfare families may do worse than other poor children, whereas on other measures they may do better. We focus on three explanations for these differences by parental welfare receipt.

First, low-income families receiving welfare differ in financial resources from those who do not. To the extent that low-income welfare parents simply have less money to invest in books, educational activities and toys, health care, housing, and other advantages that require financial resources, children's cognitive skills will be lower, leading to lower levels of completed schooling. Whereas low income has generally been found detrimental to children's achievements, the provision of financial cash assistance through programs such as AFDC should be associated with improvements in children's well-being relative to comparable families without such cash assistance. Consistency and stability of income may also contribute to child well-being.

If people who receive cash assistance respond, however, by reducing their efforts to become self-sufficient, cash assistance will not improve their economic well-being. A second explanation, therefore, argues that welfare recipiency affects attitudes and values of parents and their behaviors (such as employment). This "welfare culture" model emphasizes deviant values, attitudes, and behaviors of parents that are transmitted to their children through the parenting process. One of the outcomes is a lower rate of paid employment of children as young adults (Haveman & Wolfe, 1994); another is out-of-wedlock childbearing (An, Haveman, & Wolfe, 1993). Existing research is limited in that welfare receipt is usually measured during adolescence; receipt at that time may have a stronger effect on schooling and fertility than receipt measured at earlier ages.