Maternal Work Incentives and Adolescent Behaviors

PIs: Nancy E. Reichman, Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave, and Ariel Kalil

Funder: NICHD

This project investigates the effects of the dramatic restructuring of the cash assistance system for poor families in the US on a large array of social and health behaviors of adolescent children, using all appropriate publicly-available datasets and both traditional and new innovative methods. We are exploring heterogeneous effects (e.g., by age of youngest child, child gender, mother’s welfare history) and effects of timing and duration of exposure to welfare reform, as well as pathways between welfare reform and behaviors. This research focuses on behaviors that are highly salient for public health and is essential for understanding the effects of the drastically reduced cash assistance safety net on the next generation. The work builds upon a previous NICHD-funded project that estimated the effects of welfare reform on adult women’s human capital acquisition, drug and alcohol use/abuse, criminal behavior, and voting turnout.