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In this study, we analyzed whether parents' receipt of welfare affects children's educational attainment in early adulthood, independent of its effect through changing family income. We used data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics with information on parents' welfare receipt over the first 15 years of childhood. Cross-sectional results show that greater exposure to welfare is significantly associated with children's poorer educational attainment. Family fixed-effect regressions also indicate a negative effect of exposure to welfare, but its overall pattern is less consistent. Although exposure to welfare in early childhood has no effect, in adolescence and, to a lesser degree, in middle childhood, its effect is often negative.

Recent deliberations over welfare reform place a new emphasis on alcohol and drug addiction as a cause of welfare dependency and joblessness. Existing studies show a complex relationship between addiction and welfare dependency, but few studies closely examine the nature of this relationship. We examine several intervening mechanisms--as suggested by human capital theory, social capital arguments, and labeling theory--that help to explain this relationship in event history models of how people leave from and return to welfare programs over a 6-year period. We find that alcohol and drug dependence are not strong predictors of whether or not aid recipients leave welfare for a job, even though explanations focused on work capacity and human capital currently prevail in the debate over welfare reform. Substance dependence is a stronger determinant of leaving welfare due to family disruptions and administrative removals from aid, which is more suggestive of underlying processes involving social capital and institu tional labeling. Family and administrative reasons for leaving welfare also produce more unstable exits than exits for work, thus putting people with addictions at higher risk of returning to welfare over time. These findings should encourage us to think more about how addiction to drugs and alcohol penetrates the broader social circumstances of welfare recipients' lives, beyond their experiences in the labor market and capacities to work.

This article examines the challenges women welfare recipients face when in a nursing assistant employment and training program. The author, arguing an incomplete gender shift exists in welfare policy, discusses the impact labor training outside the home has on their relationships with male partners and their children, maintaining the women's training was complicated by their children's illnesses and partners' unemployment situations.

This article examines former female welfare recipients now working as social service workers. The authors, focusing on how the workers' past experiences affect their work, maintain the women claim to feel more empathy towards clients and felt they had valuable insights into the strengths and weaknesses of current welfare policies.

This article examines the challenges involved in addressing the unique needs of female welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence. A recent pilot project designed to provide domestic violence assistance within a public agency faced considerable organizational obstacles to provide specialized on-site services and help clients find employment.

This article examines deficiencies in social services available for female welfare recipients who are victims of family violence. Women who request domestic violence assistance are often granted waivers from welfare work requirements despite a greater need for assistance with housing, transportation, child care, and other employment barriers.

This article provides an overview of current efforts to improve social service delivery and child support agency cooperation for female welfare recipients who are victims of domestic violence. Three social service projects have provided insight into victim identification, barriers to cooperation between agencies, and responses to referrals for community-based social services.

This article examines the prevalence of partner violence among a sample of female welfare recipients from an urban county in Michigan. Findings indicate that approximately two-thirds of women had experienced domestic violence and recent victims had higher rates of health problems, psychiatric disorders, drug dependence, and material hardships.

This article examines factors related to the failure of a welfare reform program in Washington that provided employment-related services to welfare recipients. Findings indicate that the failure of the pilot program was related to the inhibiting impact of gender roles on female recipients' perceptions of welfare acceptance and work responsibilities.

This article discusses the relationship between domestic violence and employment barriers for women. Topics include welfare reform, gender, and power.

Twenty-four battered women who were on welfare were interviewed in five focus groups in two states from 1996 to 1999. The women's revelations of their attempts to work, obstacles to employment, and treatment by the welfare system before and after Temporary Assistance to Needy Families was implemented suggest the need for both short-term and long-term changes in policies.

Negative stereotypes of African-American single mothers on public assistance played a significant role in passing welfare legislation that decreased aid to poor families. By characterizing poor women as dependent and reproductively irresponsible, cuts in assistance were perceived as an acceptable way of modifying behavior.

Issues concerning the relationship between welfare policy and infant mortality are discussed. Topics addressed include the research that suggests increased welfare benefits will directly or indirectly impact infant mortality rates.

The extent and implications of cohabitation and marriage among US welfare recipients were investigated through an analysis of four data sets. Results revealed significant numbers of cohabitors among recipients of the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program, most of which were married women on welfare. AFDC rules were also found to encourage cohabitation and provide weak evidence in support of incentives to cohabit.

Objective. This article analyzes differences in the probability of receiving AFDC and SSI transfer payments between immigrant country-of-origin subgroups and natives. Methods. The article develops new estimates of AFDC and SSI recipiency using 1980 and 1990 U.S. Census data, decomposes interdecade changes in recipiency levels into size and rate components, and assesses the extent to which the observed nativity differences derive from nativity differences in sociodemographic and economic characteristics. Results. Over the decade, the overall immigrant/native differential in public assistance usage rises, primarily because of AFDC increases among immigrants and AFDC decreases among natives. The rise in immigrant AFDC recipiency, in turn, is attributable to increased sizes of immigrant country-of-origin groups with above-average rates of U.S. welfare recipiency, namely, Asian refugees and Mexicans and Central Americans, rather than from increased recipiency within these groups. When the influence of other factors on recipiency is controlled, however, the results show that immigrants are less likely than comparable natives to receive AFDC in both years. While this also holds true for SSI recipiency in 1979, in 1989 Asian refugees and, to a lesser extent, Mexican and Central American immigrants, are more likely than statistically equivalent natives to receive SSI. Conclusions. In comparison with results that are not disaggregated by country of origin and type of welfare received, these results imply that targeted programs rather than blanket immigration policy reforms might be needed.

The effects of gang violence on the decisions regarding caregiving and work provided by welfare recipients are examined. All 56 participants live in an inner city public housing development in Chicago where 49% are living under the poverty line. Results indicate that aspirations for employment and improved living standards are given up by mothers if they interfere with the healthy development of their children in the violence-infested neighborhood.

In the debate on welfare reform, stereotypes of women on welfare have resurfaced, and most proposals for reform are designed to modify and regulate women's behaviors. This article, based on information obtained in focus groups of recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, examines how women manage the stigma of being welfare mothers and what they think about 'cheating' the system. The most striking difference between recipients of the 1990s and of the 1960s is the belief of current recipients that they are entitled to governmental support as long as they are attempting to better their own lives.

More and more states are choosing to eliminate, reduce, or time limit their general assistance (GA) programs for their designated employable populations. Many governors and legislators believe that to motivate [...]

In this article we assert that it is necessary to better understand the assimilation model of racial and ethnic relations in order to comprehend more fully the contemporary debate over minority welfare mothers. We analyze the origins of the assimilation model in the debate over Indian policy in the 19th-century United States and its role in 20th-century social thought and policy toward other racial and ethnic minorities. We then examine three critical weaknesses of the model as they appear in assimilation programs based on the model. Finally, we return to the debate over assisting minority single mothers and show how the assimilation model has shaped that debate from the turn of the century to the present day.

The US public welfare system has tried to decrease the material poverty of the people but has increased their behavioral poverty, with increased dependency rates and lack of ambitions. These programs also encourage single parent families and increase unemployment rates, creating more welfare dependence. Children brought up in the welfare system fail to become self-sufficient, and depend more on welfare than their abilities. Welfare reforms based on the importance of stable families should aim at reducing behavioral poverty.

A SURVEY HAS IDENTIFIED SOME PROMISING APPROACHES. Paternity establishment, the legal process that gives parental rights and responsibilities to men who father children outside of marriage, is one of the [...]

Social workers should respond accordingly to the 1996 welfare legislation, which aims to introduce long-term welfare recipients into the labor market. Women on welfare can only attain self-sufficiency if inequities in the labor market can be eliminated and access to child care and other health services is provided. Case management is necessary to empower female welfare recipients and prepare them for self-sufficiency.

The article uses time series analysis to examine the reasons behind the drop in welfare recipients and the impact of government reforms in the United States.

This article reports on a 1996 prevalence study of domestic violence and other partner- and family-related problems among 404 female aid to families with dependent children (AFDC) recipients in the Kansas City, Missouri, metropolitan area. Almost one third of the women had been abused sometime in their lives, and 10% had been abused in the past year. The women stated that abuse or lack of support reduced their ability to work, but not as often as did lack of child care and transportation. Thus, domestic violence may affect women's success in finding and keeping jobs.