Intergenerational Effects of Welfare Reform on Educational Attainment

Miller, Amalia R.; Zhang, Lei

doi:10.1086/663348

Cited by 14 publications

(1 citation statement)

References 40 publications

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“…Cognitive development may be more malleable in early childhood (Heckman, 2006), which could explain the contrast. On high school graduation, Miller and Zhang (2012) find that graduation rates increased in low-income areas, relative to high-income places, following US welfare reform. Similarly, Hartley, Lamarche and Ziliak (2022) find that a mother receiving AFDC/TANF during their daughter's teenage years decreases the probability that the daughter has more than a high school degree.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

The effect of reducing welfare access on employment, health, and children's long-run outcomes

Green,

Hicks,

Simard-Duplain

et al. 2023

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Welfare caseloads in North America halved following reforms in the 1990s and 2000s. We study how this shift affected families by linking Canadian welfare records to tax returns, medical spending, educational attainment, and crime data. We find substantial and heterogeneous employment responses that increased average income despite reduced transfers. We find zero effects on aggregate health expenditures, but mothers saw reduced preventative care and increased mental health treatment, consistent with the transition to employment elevating time pressure and stress. We find no effect on teenagers' education and criminal charges as young adults but do find evidence of intergenerational welfare transmission.

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Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 98%

The effect of reducing welfare access on employment, health, and children's long-run outcomes

Green,

Hicks,

Simard-Duplain

et al. 2023

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Pathways of Disadvantage: Unpacking the Intergenerational Correlation in Welfare

Bubonya

Cobb‐Clark

2021

Economics of Education Review

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This research studies the pathways that link welfare receipt across generations in Australia. Our analysis not only calculates the intergenerational correlation in welfare, but also quantify the portion of that correlation that operates through key mechanisms. Our data come from administrative welfare records for young Australians (aged 23-26) and their parents over nearly two decades which have been linked to survey responses from young people at age 18. Together, the pathways we consider jointly account for nearly a third (32.2 percent) of the intergenerational correlation in welfare participation and more than half (52.6 percent) of the link between parental welfare participation and young people's total welfare benefits. The primary mechanism linking welfare receipt across generations is the failure to complete high school. Young Australians in welfare-reliant families experience more disruptions in their schooling through school changes, residential mobility, school expulsions and school suspensions. They also receive less financial support from their families. Both of these negatively affect their chances of completing high school and avoiding the welfare roll. Young Australians' risk-taking behavior-for example, smoking, illicit drug use, delinquency and pregnancy-is also a key pathway in transmitting welfare reliance across generations. Physical and mental health, academic achievement, and work-welfare attitudes, in contrast, have a more modest role in intergenerational welfare. The lack of strong evidence that work-welfare attitudes drive the intergenerational correlation in welfare receipt is at odds with cultural explanations of intergenerational welfare which attribute welfare dependency to the values that children acquire from their parents and neighbors. Taken together, our results present a clear focus for policy action; schools, communities and governments must find better ways to support the education of children in welfarereliant families. The importance of parental financial support in transmitting disadvantage across generations calls into question the wisdom of Australian policies that increasingly shift the financial burden of supporting young people from the public purse to their families.

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Single mothers and their children: Evaluating a work-encouraging welfare reform

Løken

Lommerud

Reiso

2018

Journal of Public Economics

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Using rich administrative data from Norway, we evaluate a 1998 work-encouraging reform targeted at single parents. We especially focus on educational performances for children of the involved single mothers. For all children of single mothers, the effect on school grades at completion of junior high school at age 16 is near zero and insignificant. If one concentrates on younger single mothers, those most likely to be affected by the reform, the grade point average of their children drops significantly by 7% of a standard deviation. We isolate groups of mothers who are affected by the reform either primarily by having less time at home, or by reduced income. The children of both groups of mothers experience drops in school grades. We conclude that the mechanisms behind these grade-drops must involve both reduced available parental time and reduced income.

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Intergenerational Effects of Welfare Reform on Educational Attainment

Cited by 14 publications

References 40 publications

The effect of reducing welfare access on employment, health, and children's long-run outcomes

The effect of reducing welfare access on employment, health, and children's long-run outcomes

Pathways of Disadvantage: Unpacking the Intergenerational Correlation in Welfare

Single mothers and their children: Evaluating a work-encouraging welfare reform

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