Welfare reform and related policy changes have altered the context in which welfare-reliant women make choices about employment and family care. Using data from longitudinal qualitative interviews, we examined women's experiences of workfamily tradeoffs and how they think their employment affected their children. Women identified multiple co-occurring costs and benefits of work for themselves and their children. Benefits included: increased income; increased self-esteem, feelings of independence, and social integration; and the ability to model work and self-sufficiency values for children. Costs included: working without increased income; overload, exhaustion, and stress; and less time and energy to be with, supervise, and support children. The relevance of these findings for family policy specialists and practitioners who work with low-income families is discussed.

The analysis presented in this article is derived from a larger longitudinal project that attempts to study the experiences of women being released from prison. A focus of this research is to better understand the challenges that women face in achieving sustainable financial, emotional, and familial lives after release. The data consist of baseline interviews with 41 women who were incarcerated in a prison system in the midwestern United States and were within 6 months of release. The purpose of this substudy is to investigate the ways in which women prepare for the reshaping of their identities as they approach their release dates. Women in this study have great difficulty describing who they are as individuals, and they often relate this difficulty to past experiences of trauma. Their descriptions of self are typically ill defined, unstable, and extremely fluid. Many report that their understanding of themselves as addicts helps them to develop a clearer, more stable sense of self.

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