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Has welfare reform changed teenage behaviors?
Author(s) -
Kaestner Robert,
Korenman Sanders,
O'Neill June
Publication year - 2003
Publication title -
journal of policy analysis and management
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.898
H-Index - 84
eISSN - 1520-6688
pISSN - 0276-8739
DOI - 10.1002/pam.10115
Subject(s) - receipt , welfare reform , welfare , disadvantaged , demographic economics , fertility , educational attainment , national longitudinal surveys , economics , demography , economic growth , population , sociology , accounting , market economy
Data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979 and 1997 cohorts were used to compare welfare use,fertility, educational attainment, and marriage among teenage women in the years before and immediatelyfollowing welfare reform. The first objective was to document differences between these cohorts in welfare useand outcomes and behavior correlated with entry into welfare and with future economic and socialwell‐being. The second objective was to investigate the causal role of welfare reform in behavioralchange. Significant differences were found between cohorts in welfare use and in outcomes related to welfareuse. Furthermore, difference‐in‐differences estimates suggest that welfare reform has beenassociated with reduced welfare receipt, reduced fertility, and reduced marriage among young women who, becauseof a disadvantaged family background, are at high risk of welfare receipt. Finally, in the post‐welfarereform era, teenage mothers are less likely to receive welfare and are more likely to live with at least oneparent than in the pre‐reform era. Establishing more definitively that welfare reform is responsible forthese changes will require further investigation. © 2003 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis andManagement.