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...

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...

This article demonstrates a novel application of propensity score matching techniques: to estimate nonexperimental impacts on program participants within the context of an experimental research design. The author examines the relationship between program participation, defined as qualifying for...

Using data from two recent waves of the European Social Survey, we examine the relationship between macro-level supports for child rearing and individual-level fertility outcomes. We characterize country-level support environments across a broader set of domains than is typical, including...

Prior research linking family structure with parenting often confounds the effects of family structure with the effects of family instability. In this analysis, I use data from the Fragile Families Study (N= 3107) to answer two main questions: (a) Are there differences in maternal stress and...

We use the package deal framework to study the trajectory of father involvement over time as a function of union status, while also examining reporting differences in father involvement by parent gender. Data on 4,224 mother-father pairs are from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study....

While individuals returning from prison face many barriers to successful re-entry, among the most serious are the challenges they face in securing housing. Housing has long been recognized as a prerequisite for stable employment, access to social services, and other aspects of individual and...

High rates of incarceration, coupled with high rates of fatherhood among men in prison, has motivated a far-reaching literature that examines the effects of paternal incarceration on family stability and child development. Although a growing body of evidence documents significant disadvantage...