Teenagers and Welfare Reform.

This report examines the extent to which welfare reform is changing adolescent behaviors that lead to welfare dependency. It begins by discussing the provisions in the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 that require teenagers to stay in school and live with a parent, concluding that relatively little can be learned from looking at individual state programs. Next, it examines previous research in this area. The current study used data from the Current Population Survey March Supplement, which contains detailed information on family characteristics, household composition, and income. The main sample included roughly 74,000 teenage girls from 1989-2001. Data analysis investigated the degree to which welfare reform was responsible for observed changes in dropping out of school, living with parents, and having an out-of-wedlock child. Results indicated that welfare reform strongly related to certain changes in teen outcomes between 1989-2001. It significantly reduced the school dropout rate of low income teenage girls, had little effect on living arrangements (except among young, low income mothers), and reduced the number of never-married girls who had children. (Contains 15 references.) (SM)