IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v170y2016icp197-207.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Child access to the nutritional safety net during and after the Great Recession: The case of WIC

Author

Listed:
  • Jackson, Margot I.
  • Mayne, Patrick

Abstract

Because children disproportionately live in poverty, they are especially vulnerable during economic crises, making the social safety net a key buffer against the effects of economic disadvantage on their development. The Great Recession of 2007–2009 had strong and lasting effects on American children and families, including striking negative effects on their health environments. Understanding access to the health safety net during this time of increased economic need, as well as the extent to which all children—regardless of age, income or race/ethnicity—share in the increased use of transfer programs, is therefore important in identifying the availability and accessibility of government assistance for those in need. Focusing on the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program because of its strong effects on child development, we use longitudinal data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) to examine change and stability in children's WIC enrollment before, during and after the recession. Specifically, we examine: 1) whether children's WIC enrollment increased alongside changing family income, and 2) the extent to which changes in participation were shared by all subpopulations, regardless of age, income, and race/ethnicity. Analyses reveal that WIC participation among eligible children increased leading up to, during, and after the Great Recession, suggesting that the program was responsive to increasing economic need. Examining the distribution of WIC enrollment across demographic groups largely reveals a pattern of stable inequality in access and “take up.” Children born to poorer and less-educated mothers were more likely to be enrolled prior to the recession, and these differences remain mostly constant during and after the recession. Eligible Hispanic children had consistently higher enrollment, particularly among those in families with foreign-born mothers. The findings suggest that not all eligible children equally enroll in WIC, but that these differences have not been drastically exacerbated by macroeconomic instability.

Suggested Citation

  • Jackson, Margot I. & Mayne, Patrick, 2016. "Child access to the nutritional safety net during and after the Great Recession: The case of WIC," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 170(C), pages 197-207.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:170:y:2016:i:c:p:197-207
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.10.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953616305639
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2016.10.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Rank & Thomas Hirschl, 1993. "The link between population density and welfare participation," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 607-622, November.
    2. Christina Paxson & Norbert Schady, 2005. "Child Health and Economic Crisis in Peru," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 19(2), pages 203-223.
    3. Suci, Eunike, 2006. "Child access to health services during the economic crisis: An Indonesian experience of the safety net program," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(11), pages 2912-2925, December.
    4. Moffitt, Robert, 1983. "An Economic Model of Welfare Stigma," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 73(5), pages 1023-1035, December.
    5. Marianne P. Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of Social Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 41(2 (Fall)), pages 71-147.
    6. Rossin-Slater, Maya, 2013. "WIC in your neighborhood: New evidence on the impacts of geographic access to clinics," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 102(C), pages 51-69.
    7. Marianne Bitler & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2010. "The State of the Safety Net in the Post-Welfare Reform Era," NBER Working Papers 16504, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Florencia Torche, 2011. "The Effect of Maternal Stress on Birth Outcomes: Exploiting a Natural Experiment," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1473-1491, November.
    9. Brian Finch, 2003. "Early origins of the gradient: the relationship between socioeconomic status and infant mortality in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 40(4), pages 675-699, November.
    10. Schmeer, Kammi K., 2012. "Early childhood economic disadvantage and the health of Hispanic children," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(8), pages 1523-1530.
    11. Reiss, Franziska, 2013. "Socioeconomic inequalities and mental health problems in children and adolescents: A systematic review," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 24-31.
    12. Oliveira, Victor & Frazao, Elizabeth, 2009. "The WIC Program: Background, Trends, and Economic Issues, 2009 Edition," Economic Research Report 55839, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    13. Guang Guo & Kathleen Harris, 2000. "The mechanisms mediating the effects of poverty on children’s intellectual development," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 37(4), pages 431-447, November.
    14. Robert Moffitt, 2015. "The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(3), pages 729-749, June.
    15. Coleman-Jensen, Alisha & Nord, Mark & Singh, Anita, 2013. "Household Food Security in the United States in 2012," Economic Research Report 262219, United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Service.
    16. Laura Tiehen & Alison Jacknowitz, 2008. "Why Wait?: Examining Delayed Wic Participation Among Pregnant Women," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 518-538, October.
    17. Martin-Anderson, Sarah, 2013. "Prenatal attitudes and parity predict selection into a U.S. child health program: A short report," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 128-132.
    18. Lloyd Grieger & Sheldon Danziger, 2011. "Who Receives Food Stamps During Adulthood? Analyzing Repeatable Events With Incomplete Event Histories," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(4), pages 1601-1614, November.
    19. Erus, Burcay & Yakut-Cakar, Burcu & Cali, Sanda & Adaman, Fikret, 2015. "Health policy for the poor: An exploration on the take-up of means-tested health benefits in Turkey," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 99-106.
    20. Swann Christopher A, 2010. "WIC Eligibility and Participation: The Roles of Changing Policies, Economic Conditions, and Demographics," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 10(1), pages 1-37, March.
    21. Jackson, Margot I., 2015. "Early childhood WIC participation, cognitive development and academic achievement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 145-153.
    22. Marianne P. Bitler & Janet Currie, 2005. "Does WIC work? The effects of WIC on pregnancy and birth outcomes," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 73-91.
    23. Stuber, Jennifer & Schlesinger, Mark, 2006. "Sources of stigma for means-tested government programs," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 63(4), pages 933-945, August.
    24. Kowaleski-Jones, L. & Duncan, G.J., 2002. "Effects of participation in the WIC program on birthweight: Evidence from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(5), pages 799-804.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Jackson, Margot I., 2015. "Early childhood WIC participation, cognitive development and academic achievement," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 145-153.
    2. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes & Elira Kuka, 2017. "Child Poverty, the Great Recession, and the Social Safety Net in the United States," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 36(2), pages 358-389, March.
    3. Katherine Meckel, 2020. "Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? Unintended Effects of Payment Reform in a Quantity-Based Transfer Program," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 110(6), pages 1821-1865, June.
    4. Nobles, Jenna & Hamoudi, Amar, 2019. "Detecting the Effects of Early-Life Exposures: Why Fecundity Matters," SocArXiv x4zm6, Center for Open Science.
    5. Li, Xuemei & Saitone, Tina L. & Sexton, Richard J., 2022. "Impacts of Electronic Benefit Transfer on the Women, Infants and Children Program: Evidence from Oklahoma," Journal of Agricultural and Resource Economics, Western Agricultural Economics Association, vol. 47(2), May.
    6. Zhang, Qi & Chen, Chun & Xue, Hong & Park, Kayoung & Wang, Youfa, 2021. "Revisiting the relationship between WIC participation and breastfeeding among low-income children in the U.S. after the 2009 WIC food package revision," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 101(C).
    7. Irma Arteaga & Colleen Heflin & Sarah Parsons, 2019. "Design Flaws: Consequences of the Coverage Gap in Food Programs for Children at Kindergarten Entry," Applied Economic Perspectives and Policy, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 41(2), pages 265-283, June.
    8. Bradley Hardy & Timothy Smeeding & James P. Ziliak, 2018. "The Changing Safety Net for Low-Income Parents and Their Children: Structural or Cyclical Changes in Income Support Policy?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 55(1), pages 189-221, February.
    9. Di Fang & Michael R. Thomsen & Rodolfo M. Nayga & Aaron M. Novotny, 2019. "WIC Participation and Relative Quality of Household Food Purchases: Evidence from FoodAPS," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 86(1), pages 83-105, July.
    10. Yan, Ji, 2022. "Is WIC effective in improving pregnancy-related outcomes? An empirical reassessment," Economics & Human Biology, Elsevier, vol. 47(C).
    11. Dhaval Dave & Hope Corman & Ariel Kalil & Ofira Schwartz-Soicher & Nancy E. Reichman, 2019. "Effects of Maternal Work Incentives on Adolescent Social Behaviors," Working Papers 2019-026, Human Capital and Economic Opportunity Working Group.
    12. Thesia I. Garner & Charles Hokayem, 2012. "Supplemental Poverty Measure Thresholds: Imputing School Lunch and WIC Benefits to the Consumer Expenditure Survey Using the Current Population Survey," Working Papers 457, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
    13. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes, 2016. "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 403-444.
    14. Haeck, Catherine & Lefebvre, Pierre, 2016. "A simple recipe: The effect of a prenatal nutrition program on child health at birth," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(C), pages 77-89.
    15. Dhaval M. Dave & Hope Corman & Ariel Kalil & Ofira Schwartz-Soicher & Nancy Reichman, 2019. "Intergenerational Effects of Welfare Reform: Adolescent Delinquent and Risky Behaviors," NBER Working Papers 25527, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. Hoynes, Hilary & Page, Marianne & Stevens, Ann Huff, 2011. "Can targeted transfers improve birth outcomes?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7), pages 813-827.
    17. Evan D. Peet & Dana Schultz & Susan Lovejoy & Fuchiang (Rich) Tsui, 2023. "Variation in the infant health effects of the women, infants, and children program by predicted risk using novel machine learning methods," Health Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(1), pages 194-217, January.
    18. Bolbocean, Corneliu & Tylavsky, Frances A., 2021. "The impact of safety net programs on early-life developmental outcomes," Food Policy, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    19. Laura Tiehen & Alison Jacknowitz, 2008. "Why Wait?: Examining Delayed Wic Participation Among Pregnant Women," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 26(4), pages 518-538, October.
    20. Kyriopoulos, Ilias & Nikoloski, Zlatko & Mossialos, Elias, 2019. "Does economic recession impact newborn health? Evidence from Greece," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 237(C), pages 1-1.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:170:y:2016:i:c:p:197-207. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.