Nonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many...

Nearly a third of all births in the United States today occur to parents who are not legally married. The proportions are even higher among poor and minority populations, 40% among Hispanics, and 70% among blacks (Ventura et al. 1995). Out-of-wedlock childbearing is occurring with increasing...

We investigate the influence of changes in demography, the strength of the economy, and social policies on teen birth rates in the U.S. from 1981 to 1999, a period of wildly fluctuating rates. We find that demographic and social policy changes largely counteracted one another during this period...

Nonmarital childbearing is important because it is increasing and because there is concern (and some evidence) that it is damaging to children and perhaps parents as well. We refer to the unions of unwed parents as fragile families because they are similar to traditional families in many...

This study hypothesizes that stringent state welfare policies may promote enrollment and reduce employment through four mechanisms taking place in the larger society, the local labor market and the family, particularly for adolescents from low-income families. We conduct a rigorous and robust...

The federal government spent more than $19 billion on subsidized housing programs for the poor in Fiscal Year 1992. Of this amount, roughly two-thirds was spent on Section 8 housing vouchers and one-third on public housing projects. Although spending on these programs is nearly equal to Aid to...

The Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), enacted in 1982 as a major initiative of the Reagan Administration, created what became a $5 billion federally-funded employment and training program for disadvantaged workers. The JTPA directs the states to provide services to "those who can benefit...

We assess the impact on family functioning and child well-being of the New Hope Project, a random-assignment anti-poverty program. New Hope's treatment provides job-search assistance, wage supplements that raise income above the poverty threshold, and subsidies for health insurance and child...

This paper has been published as: Bruce Meyer and Dan Rosenbaum. 2000. "Making Single Mothers Work: Recent Tax and Welfare Policy and Its Effects," National Tax Journal 53(4, part 2): 1027-1062. <p> We describe the enormous changes in social and tax policy in recent years that have encouraged work...</p>