The Determinants and Consequences of Child Care Subsidies for Single Mothers

Abstract

This paper provides an analysis of child care subsidies under welfare reform. Previous studies of child care subsidies use data from the pre-welfare-reform period, and their results may not apply to the very different post-reform environment. We use data from the 1999 National Survey ofAmerica's Families to analyze the determinants of receipt of a child care subsidy and the effects of subsidy receipt on employment, school attendance, job search, and welfare participation. We analyze the impact on subsidy receipt of household characteristics such as family size and structure, and past participation in welfare. The most important determinant of receipt of a child care subsidy is past receipt, but we cannot determine from our analysis whether this is a causal effect or a result of unobserved heterogeneity. Ordinary least squares estimates that treat subsidy receipt as exogenous show an effect of subsidy receipt of about 13 percentage points on employment. Two stage least squares estimates that treat subsidy receipt as endogenous and use county dummies as identifying instruments show an effect of 32 percentage points. We present some evidence that is consistent with the assumption that county dummies are valid identifying instruments, and some evidence that is inconsistent with the assumption.

The needs of hearing impaired children's parents who attend to auditory verbal therapy-counseling program

“…Similar studies conducted in Turkey have also shown that families of disabled children do not receive adequate financial support and they experience financial difficulties [17,18]. Also, some of the studies have shown that parents with disabled children do not receive subsidies because they are unaware of the available services or believe that they are not eligible [22,23]. Most of the parents who were involved in the present study also stated that they were unsure about the present information on paying for the hearing aids (58%), for therapy (50.8%) and for child or respite care (55%).…”

What Makes Single Mothers Expand or Reduce Employment?

“…It has been shown that the amount of social welfare and benefits (Wagenhals 1999) affects women's labor supply. Furthermore, other studies point to the importance of childcare and its increasing effect on single mothers' labor participation (Cascio 2009, Blau/Tekin 2007, Kornstadt/Thoresen 2007, Hank/Kreyenfeld 2000. Besides institutional aspects, sociodemographic factors play a decisive role in illustrating and explaining single mothers' labor participation.…”

Subsidizing child care: How child care subsidies affect the child care used by low-income African American families

“…Although many eligible children do not receive child-care assistance (Blau & Tekin, 2001;Child Care Bureau, 2002;Shlay, Weinraub, Harmon, & Tran, 2004), there are still many children who do. In 2002, it was estimated that more than 2 million children nationwide were receiving child-care subsidies through public funding programs (Adams & Rohacek, 2002).…”