This paper examines how the public policy environment in the United States affects work by new mothers following childbirth. We examine four types of policies that vary across states and affect the budget constraint in different ways. The policy environment has important effects, particularly...

In the United States and Britain, there is a 'family gap' between the wages of mothers and other women. Differential returns to marital and parental status explain 40-50 percent of the gender gap. Another 30-40 percent is explained by women's lower levels of work experience and lower returns to...

In recent years, women have made considerable gains relative to men in the labor market. Most notably, the gender gap in hourly wages has narrowed substantially. In this paper we divide workers into three skill groups on the basis of education, and analyze how the hourly earnings of women in...

This paper examines the effects of recent welfare reforms in the US and UK on the well-being of children in low-income families, looking specifically at the effects on poverty, family expenditures, and child health and development. The paper finds some commonalities but also some notable...

This paper uses microdata from the United States, Britain and Japan to examine the effects of family leave coverage on women's employment after childbirth. The United States had no national family leave legislation until 1993, but many women were covered by employer policies. Britain has had...

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 represents a dramatic change in the US welfare state. One of its key goals was to move lone mothers, even those with young children, from welfare to work. Early evidence suggests that, in concert with a strong...

In 1998, a conference brought together US psychologists, economists, sociologists, demographers, political scientists, social workers, and medical doctors, to review what we know about the processes that affect child development and how we might wisely increase public and private investments in...

We examine how income influences pre-school children’s cognitive and behavioral development, using new data from a birth cohort study of children born at the end of the 20th century. On average, low income children have lower PPVT scores, more mother-reported aggressive, withdrawn, and anxious...