What We Know, What We Don't Know, and What We Need to Know about Welfare Reform

Blank, Rebecca M.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511605383.003

Cited by 49 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 67 publications

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“…Evidence from the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US suggested that cash transfers enabled families to spend more on housing, transportation, and education (Gao, Kaushal, & Waldfogel, 2009), which might imply more time spent on housekeeping, transportation, and education activities. Meanwhile, welfare programs may distort incentives and lead to reduced work efforts and lower marriage rates (Blank, 2009), which in turn might suggest less time spent on work or family activities.…”

Section: Welfare Participation and Time Use: Existing Evidence And Hymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Evidence from the US has shown that non-conditional cash transfer programs may distort incentives and lead to reduced work efforts and lower marriage rates (Blank, 2009), which could result in less time spent on work or family activities. Another possible channel of this link could be the strong stigma associated with welfare receipt, which might lead to less time spent on social or leisure activities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Welfare Participation and Time Use in China

Gao

Zhai

2014

Soc Indic Res

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Using the newly available China Family Panel Studies (CFPS) 2010 survey data and a propensity score matching method with tobit regressions, this study examines the possible influence of participation in China's primary welfare program, Dibao, on household head's time use pattern in both urban and rural areas. We find that Dibao lowered recipients time spent on various leisure and social activities and increased their idle time for both urban and rural residents. Urban Dibao recipients also tended to spend less time on education activities, while rural Dibao recipients spent more time on personal care and household activities such as housekeeping and sleeping or resting. Urban Dibao recipients spent more time on work-related activities on typical non-work days, while rural Dibao recipients spent less time on work activities on typical work days. These findings provide pioneering evidence on the possible link between welfare participation and time use patterns in the global welfare literature. As Dibao is constantly expanding, the empirical evidence from this article suggests that Dibao might have some unintended adverse effects on recipients, including less time spent on leisure and social activities, reduced work and education activities or increased underground employment, and more time spent on being idle. Future reforms of Dibao and its supplementary policies and programs need to consider how best to promote both the economic and holistic well-being of the participants.

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Section: Welfare Participation and Time Use: Existing Evidence And Hymentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Welfare Participation and Time Use in China

Gao

Zhai

2014

Soc Indic Res

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“…The duration of benefit spells was maximized at 5 years. Moreover, more severe work requirements and sanctions for not complying with these rules were introduced (Blank 2007;Moffitt 2008). The welfare reform replaced a federal matching grant of 40% of expenses by a block grant and gave states more discretion about eligibility rules and the benefit level.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For these, Blank (2007) and Moffitt (2008) find impact estimates of about 20%. Before 1996, US states received a matching grant of 40% of welfare expenses from the federal government.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 97%

Do Incentives for Municipalities Reduce the Welfare Caseload? Evaluation of a Welfare Reform in the Netherlands

Kok

Tempelman

Koning³

et al. 2017

De Economist

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Since 2004, most municipalities in the Netherlands receive lump sum payments from the state for the payment of social assistance allowances. As municipalities had no authority to change the eligibility rules for social assistance, the effects of the welfare reform are solely due to the efforts of municipalities to decrease the number of welfare recipients. Using variation in the timing of policy changes, this paper uses a difference-in-difference approach to assess the effectiveness of the incentive for municipalities. Based on individual panel data from administrative records, we show that the high-powered scheme led to a decline of the welfare caseload of 14% up till 2008. The reform has been most effective for those with the highest welfare dependency: single mothers and singles from non-western origin. In line with standard economic predictions, the reform does not give an incentive for cream skimming: the welfare caseload declined as well for easy to place recipients as for difficult to place recipients.

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“…1 But there is also evidence that the effects of such reforms are heterogeneous and some single parents are made worse off. In the US, for example, welfare reforms are thought to have led to a substantial increase in the proportion of "disconnected " single mothers who are not in work nor on benefits ( Blank, 2007 ). But the comprehensive nature of the reforms evaluated in this literature makes it difficult to disentangle the effects of the individual provisions: the 1996 US reform, which has been the subject of a large number of studies, simultaneously introduced time limits, work search requirements and sanctions ( Moffitt, 2008 ), as well as giving states considerable discretion in designing the welfare system.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Can’t work or won’t work: quasi-experimental evidence on work search requirements for single parents

Avram¹,

Brewer²,

Salvatori³

2016

Working Paper Series

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a b s t r a c tIncreasing the labour market participation of single parents, whether to boost incomes or reduce welfare spending, is a major policy objective in a number of countries. This paper presents causal evidence on the impact of work search requirements on single parents ' transitions into work and onto other benefits. We use rich administrative data on all single parent welfare recipients, and apply a difference-in-differences approach that exploits the staggered roll-out of a reform in the UK that gradually decreased the age of the youngest child at which single parents lose the right to an unconditional cash benefit. Consistent with the predictions of a simple search model, the work search requirements have heterogeneous impacts, leading some single parents to move into work, but leading some (especially those with weak previous labour market attachments) to move onto disability benefits (with no search conditionalities) or non-claimant unemployment.

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What We Know, What We Don't Know, and What We Need to Know about Welfare Reform

Cited by 49 publications

References 67 publications

Welfare Participation and Time Use in China

Welfare Participation and Time Use in China

Do Incentives for Municipalities Reduce the Welfare Caseload? Evaluation of a Welfare Reform in the Netherlands

Can’t work or won’t work: quasi-experimental evidence on work search requirements for single parents

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