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Does Welfare Participation Affect Women's Wages? *
Author(s) -
Noonan Mary C.,
Heflin Colleen M.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
social science quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.482
H-Index - 90
eISSN - 1540-6237
pISSN - 0038-4941
DOI - 10.1111/j.0038-4941.2005.00339.x
Subject(s) - welfare , affect (linguistics) , survey of income and program participation , economics , wage , labour economics , demographic economics , work (physics) , longitudinal data , survey data collection , wage growth , hourly wage , test (biology) , psychology , sociology , demography , mathematics , biology , mechanical engineering , paleontology , statistics , communication , engineering , market economy
Objectives. This study examines how welfare participation and employment affect women's wages. Methods. We use longitudinal data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation and fixed‐effects regression models to test our hypotheses. Results. Our results indicate that time spent on welfare while unemployed results in a wage penalty that is similar to the penalty associated with nonwelfare work breaks. Time spent on welfare while employed has no effect on wages, unlike the strong positive impact of nonwelfare work periods. Conclusions. Working while on welfare does appear to prevent further wage deterioration, but does not lead to substantial wage growth.