Since World War II, the average age at which women experience their first birth has drifted up, but since 1986 there has been a resurgence of births to teenagers. Just as early fertility appears to adversely affect the life chances of the teen mother, it may also have negative effects on her...

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...

Little is known about the use of welfare by young men; most research and debate have concentrated on the use of welfare by families headed by single women. The present research includes young men in the debate by examining the personal characteristics, backgrounds, and reasons for use of young...

I examine whether changes in Medicaid eligibility for young children can help explain the caseload growth in the Food Stamp program between 1987 and 1995. Medicaid may increase food stamp participation through increased awareness about other welfare benefits. It could also reduce earnings...

Foster care is a poorly studied and poorly understood social service program. In particular, foster care has received almost no attention from poverty policy analysts in spite of its growing size and close relationship to the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program. In this article, I...

In this paper we use micro-level data on employers and employees to investigate whether Affirmative Action procedures lead firms to hire minority or female employees who are less qualified than workers who might otherwise be hired. Our measures of qualifications include the educational...

Wisconsin’s welfare reform program, Wisconsin Works (W-2), is among the most ambitious and comprehensive state reforms supported by the U.S. government’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) block grant. This paper describes the W-2 program in Wisconsin, compares distinctive...

In this paper, we argue that entry into first sexual intercourse is a key process mediating the effects of family structure on premarital childbearing. We explicate three ways in which onset of sexual activity can mediate effects of family structure on premarital first births. First, the gross...

This paper examines the extent to which differences in welfare generosity across states lead to interstate migration. Using microdata from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth between 1979 and 1992, we employ a quasi-experimental design that utilizes the categorical eligibility of the...