How Welfare and Employment How Welfare and Employment Policies Affect ChildrenPolicies Affect Children

Beth Clark-KauffmanGreg J. Duncan

Northwestern University

Pamela MorrisMDRC

The Next Generation Project

Participating researchers from:

MDRCUniversity of Texas at Austin Northwestern UniversityUniversity of California at Los AngelesUniversity of OreganUniversity of MichiganNew York UniversitySyracuse UniversitySocial Research and Demonstration Corporation

www.mdrc.org/NextGeneration

Funders:

The David and Lucile Packard Foundation

William T. Grant Foundation

John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation

Question:Question:

Do work-promoting welfare policies help or hurt poor children’s school achievement?

Method:Method: Pool data on ~30,000 children

whose families were enrolled in 7 random-assignment experiments

Welfare Reform and Child Well-Welfare Reform and Child Well-BeingBeing

Welfare Reform Provisions

Work mandates and incentives

Sanctions

Time limits

Changes in Adult

Behavior

Employment

Welfare Receipt

Total Family Income

Changes in Child

Resources and

Context

Parenting; gatekeeping

Cognitive stimulation inside and outside the home

Maternal mental health

Changes in Child

Well-being

Effects of welfare reform Effects of welfare reform policies on children may policies on children may differ by child age or stagediffer by child age or stage

Sensitivity to change Early childhood Transitions in development

BUT, also differences in family demography

Turn to experiments of 1990s:Turn to experiments of 1990s:

Various “treatments” Mandated Employment Services

Work or Education Generous Earnings supplements Time limits

Random Assignment Follow-up after 2-3 and, in some

cases, 5 years

In contrast with recent work In contrast with recent work with these data, we:with these data, we: Pool microdata rather than working

with study-specific impact estimates Allows us to test effects for smaller

groups of children Add more studies and longer-run

follow-ups from existing studies To understand generalizability of

effects

ExperimentsExperimentsMandated

Training

Mandated work

Earnings supplements

Time limit

NEWWS

Atlanta 1 2

Grand Rapids 3 4

Riverside 5 6

MN MFIP I 7

MN MFIP II 8

Milwaukee New Hope 9

Canadian SSP 10

Experiments (continued)Experiments (continued)Mandated

Training

Mandated work

Earnings supplements

Time limit

FL FTP 11

LA Gain 12

Connecticut Jobs 1st 13

Sample SizesSample SizesAge: 0-1 2-3 4-5 6-7 8-9 10-11 12-15 ALL

ALL 1803 9021 10029 3985 3409 2558 2067 32872

Earnings supp.

MFIP 133 1037 970 821 730 537 564 4792

New Hope – 2 3 171 295 259 240 175 140 1283

New Hope – 5 174 356 238 255 213 101 0 1337

CT Jobs First 135 780 798 773 658 444 421 4009

SSP – 36 431 1163 1633 1248 1028 876 511 6890

SSP – 54 586 1229 512 0 0 0 0 2327

Non – ES

LA Gain 0 0 169 230 194 171 268 1032

NEWWS – 2 0 1275 1622 0 0 0 0 2897

NEWWS – 5 0 2392 3236 0 0 0 0 5628

FTP 341 618 556 399 346 254 163 2667

Regression analysesRegression analyses Dependent variable:

Achievement Parent Earnings and Income

Independent variables: Experimental status x age Age Source of achievement report Study dummies Baseline earnings, AFDC, maternal education,

family structure, race/ethnicity, etc.

Experimental Impacts on AchievementExperimental Impacts on Achievementstandard deviation units)standard deviation units)

*p<.10 **p<.05 ***p<.01

Age at baseline

All Earnings Supplement

Other Programs

0-1 -.062 -.040 -.181

2-3 .046 .067* -.030

4-5 .069** .112** .038

6-7 .007 .018 -.072

8-9 .023 .016 .043

10-11 -.102 * -.110* -.057

12-15 -.089 -.058 -.186*

Effects are robust to model specification changes such as: Adding interactions between experimental indicator

and: Parent and family characteristics Follow-up length Source of achievement report

Including only the subset of studies that include all age groups

Clustering at various levels Including only one achievement score or point in

time per child

Summary:Summary: Welfare reforms targeted to parents CAN

affect their children Program design matters

Policies that increase income bring benefits to younger children

Child age matters Welfare reform policies that increase

employment can benefit younger children Transitions in and out of middle childhood:

sensitive periods

Greg DuncanGreg Duncan

greg-duncan@northwestern.edugreg-duncan@northwestern.edu

Gayle and her daughterGayle and her daughterGayle, a single mother of one adolescent-aged daughter, Susan, noted that Susan was having several problems in school. Skipping school had become a big problem. Normally getting C’s or better, Susan was now getting D’s and F’s. Gayle knew her daughter was skipping school, and she was sure it had been going on frequently. However, partly because Gayle had been working she didn’t know exactly how much school Susan had missed. Gayle was afraid to confront her daughter about it or ask the school because “it’s all gonna come down on me and I’m not ready to deal with it. I don’t think I should be punished for that.” Gayle was further frustrated because she knows Susan would be going to school every day if she was home. In this situation, Gayle feels trapped between caring for her daughter and working.

Tina and her daughterTina and her daughter

Tina is a single mother. Her adolescent daughter Tamara takes her younger sister to day care in the morning:

“Cause she’s late every day for her school, every day. And what the school says to me is they gotta do what they do, what’s their policy. She’s gotta stay after school, do her detention or she’ll lose her credit out of that morning class cause she didn’t get there on time. So, she feels sad and I feel bad because I gotta be at work at 7. She can’t be at school by 7, she can’t. We all can’t be at the same place at the same time..”