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Private Financial Transfers, Family Income, and the Great Recession
Author(s) -
Gottlieb Aaron,
Pilkauskas Natasha,
Garfinkel Irwin
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
journal of marriage and family
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.578
H-Index - 159
eISSN - 1741-3737
pISSN - 0022-2445
DOI - 10.1111/jomf.12134
Subject(s) - receipt , unemployment , recession , demographic economics , economics , poverty , fragile families and child wellbeing study , great recession , family income , sample (material) , survey of income and program participation , unemployment rate , demography , labour economics , psychology , economic growth , sociology , developmental psychology , chemistry , accounting , chromatography , keynesian economics
Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study ( N = 4,701; 1998–2010), the authors studied whether the unemployment rate was associated with private financial transfers ( PFTs ) among urban families with young children and whether family income moderated these associations. They found that an increase in the unemployment rate was associated with greater PFT receipt and that family income moderated the association. Poor and near‐poor mothers experienced increases in PFT receipt when unemployment rates were high, whereas mothers with incomes between 2 and 3 times the poverty threshold experienced decreases. Simulations estimating the impact of the Great Recession suggest that moving from 5% to 10% unemployment is associated with a 9‐percentage‐point increase in the predicted probability of receiving a PFT for the sample as a whole, with greater increases in predicted probabilities among poor and near‐poor mothers.