Using data from the youngest cohorts of women in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this study constructs AFDC histories starting at age 15. Most young women go on AFDC for the first time between ages 18 and 25 and do so in the first few years after the birth of their first baby. We use...

We develop and estimate a model of social-psychological determinants of entry to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, the primary cash welfare program in the United States for 60 years until replaced in 1996. The structural model holds that attitudes and personality...