A study comparing economic status of single mother families to each other and two parent families in eight countries, using data from the LIS. Four hypotheses are investigated and findings are reported.

In the shadow of rising divorce and non-marital birth rates, nearly twothirdsof all American children today will live apart from at least one oftheir parents, usually the father. Clearly this astonishing proportion ofnon-resident fathers has serious implications for the economic,employment, and...

In the shadow of rising divorce and non-marital birth rates, nearly two-thirds of all American children today will live apart from at least one of their parents, usually the father. Clearly this astonishing proportion of non-resident fathers has serious implications for the economic, employment,...

Welfare caseloads have declined substantially since the landmark PRWORA legislation of 1996, which was designed to shift the burden of supporting needy families from government to families themselves. These caseload declines have been well documented, and characteristics of recipients following...

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is designed to shift more of the responsibility for poor children from government to parents. To accomplish this goal, the new law requires welfare clients to work and limits the total number of years they can...

Nonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many...

Our paper utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators, including measures of child...

In the shadow of rising divorce and non-marital birth rates, nearly two-thirds of all American children today will live apart from at least one of their parents, usually the father. Clearly this astonishing proportion of non-resident fathers has serious implications for the economic, employment,...

Our paper utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators including measures of child...

Some advocates worry that stronger child support enforcement may increase domestic violence. The predictions of a simple economic model are ambiguous; stronger enforcement may increase the mother's bargaining power, which reduces violence, but may also increase the father's opportunity and...