Dramatic fertility swings over the last 100 years have been the subject of large literatures in demography and economics. Recent research has claimed that the post-1960 fertility decline is exceptional enough to constitute a "Second Demographic Transition." The empirical case for a Second...

We study the effect of the Food Stamp Program (FSP) on consumption patterns in families headed by low-educated single mothers in the U.S. using the Consumer Expenditure Surveys for 1994-2004. Our analysis suggests that the food stamp caseload does not have any statistically significant...

Background: Family structure is known to influence children's behavioral, educational, and cognitive outcomes, and recent studies suggest that family structure affects children's access to health care as well. However, no study has addressed whether family structure is associated with the care...

We exploit the gender-specific components of large-scale labor demand shocks stemming from rising international manufacturing competition to test how shifts in the relative economic stature of young men versus young women affected marriage, fertility and children's living circumstances during...

This paper examines the distributional and behavioral effects of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). We chart the growth of the program over time, and argue several expansions show that real responses to taxes are important. We use tax data to show the distribution of benefits by income and...

One-third of children in the United States are born to unmarried parents. A substantial number of black and Hispanic children live with a never-married mother. Children of never-married mothers are more likely to drop out of high school, repeat grades, and have behavioral problems than are...

We empirically implement a dynamic structural model of labor supply and welfare program participation for never-married mothers with potentially time-inconsistent preferences. Using panel data on the choices of single women with children from the NLSY 1979, we provide estimates of the degree of...

We study the effect of welfare reform, broadly defined to include social policy changes in the 1990s, on the material well-being and expenditure patterns of poor single-mother families. Our research suggests that welfare reform did not affect total expenditures in households headed by...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in earnings disregards for welfare assistance received by single mothers following welfare reform in 1996. Some states adopted much higher earnings disregards (women could work full time and still receive welfare), while other states did not. We...

We provide a new examination of the incentive effects of welfare rules on family structure among low-income women by emphasizing that the eligibility and benefit rules in the AFDC and TANF programs are based more on the biological relationship between the children and any male in the household...