Forthcoming in Journal of Consumer Affairs 34 (no 1): 2000 <p>A key goal of welfare reform is for recipients to establish stable, long-term work patterns under the assumption that regular involvement in work will eventually improve their well-being. Past research provides little information about...</p>

Using a new survey of a representative sample of single mothers who were welfare recipients in an urban Michigan county, the authors explore how certain employment barriers, often ignored by previous welfare researchers and policy makers, constrain these single mothers' employability. <p> The...</p>

Using 1980 state Census data, the Gini ratio, Theil index, coefficient of variation, Atkinson measure (4 values), and Nelson index as separate measurements of income inequality are regressed with 19 SES variables traditionally found significant with Gini ...

The authors compare the incidence and some of the causes of child poverty in Sweden and the United States in selected years using data from the Luxembourg Income Study. The U.S. sample is restricted to white non-hispanic children to present the most favorable comparison with Sweden's more...

This paper utilizes a rich longitudinal data set -- the Women's Employment Study (WES) to investigate whether obesity, which is common among women of low socioeconomic status, is a barrier to employment and earnings for current and former welfare recipients. We find evidence that, among current...

Although employment among welfare mothers increased substantially following the 1996 welfare reform, some former welfare recipients failed to find stable employment. We review the extent to which low-income mothers are without work and cash welfare for long periods of time and seek to understand...

The authors use 1990 U.S. Census of Population data to calculate what poverty rates would have been if cohabitors were treated in the same manner as married couples. They find that the official treatment of cohabiting partners as separate family units overstated the extent of poverty in 1989...