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Single Mothers Working at Night: Standard Work, Child Care Subsidies, and Implications for Welfare Reform

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Author Info
Tekin, Erdal () (Georgia State University, NBER and IZA Bonn)

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Abstract

Using a data set from the post welfare reform environment (the 1999 National Survey of America’s Families), this paper investigates the impact of child care subsidies on the standard work (i.e., work performed during the traditional work hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. through Monday and Friday) decision of single mothers and tests whether this impact differs between welfare recipients and nonrecipients. The econometric strategy accounts for sample selection into the labor force and the potential endogeneity of child care subsidy receipt and welfare participation. Results suggest that child care subsidies are associated with a 6 percentage point increase in the probability of single mothers working at standard jobs. When the impact of subsidies is allowed to differ between welfare recipients and non-recipients, results indicate that welfare recipients are 14 percentage points more likely to work at standard jobs than others when they are offered a child care subsidy. Among non-recipients, child care subsidies increase standard work probability by only 1 percentage point. These results underscore the importance of child care subsidies helping low-income parents, especially welfare recipients, find jobs with conventional or standard schedules and lend support to the current practice of states’ giving priority to welfare recipients for child care subsidies. Results are found to be robust to numerous specification checks.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in its series IZA Discussion Papers with number 1014.

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Length: 44 pages
Date of creation: Feb 2004
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Handle: RePEc:iza:izadps:dp1014

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Related research
Keywords: child care subsidies; standard work; welfare; single mothers;

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Find related papers by JEL classification:
J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth
I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Mroz, Thomas A., 1999. "Discrete factor approximations in simultaneous equation models: Estimating the impact of a dummy endogenous variable on a continuous outcome," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 92(2), pages 233-274, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. Jean Kimmel & Lisa Powell, 2001. "Nonstandard Work and Child Care Choices of Married Mothers," Staff Working Papers 01-74, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Heckman, James & Singer, Burton, 1984. "A Method for Minimizing the Impact of Distributional Assumptions in Econometric Models for Duration Data," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 52(2), pages 271-320, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  4. David Blau, 2003. "Child Care Subsidy Programs," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 443-516 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Rebecca M. Blank, 2002. "Evaluating Welfare Reform in the United States," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 40(4), pages 1105-1166, December.
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  6. Berger, Mark C & Black, Dan A, 1992. "Child Care Subsidies, Quality of Care, and the Labor Supply of Low-Income, Single Mothers," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(4), pages 635-42, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Gabriel A. Picone & Frank A. Sloan & Shin-Yi Chou & Donald H. Taylor, 2003. "Does Higher Hospital Cost Imply Higher Quality of Care?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 51-62, 09. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  8. Jeffrey Grogger, 2003. "The Effects of Time Limits, the EITC, and Other Policy Changes on Welfare Use, Work, and Income among Female-Headed Families," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 394-408, 02. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  9. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2002. "Public Schooling for Young Children and Maternal Labor Supply," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(1), pages 307-322, March. [Downloadable!]
  10. David M. Blau & Alison P. Hagy, 1998. "The Demand for Quality in Child Care," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 106(1), pages 104-146, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  11. Mocan, H. Naci & Tekin, Erdal, 2001. "Nonprofit Sector and Part-Time Work:An Analysis of Employer-Employee Matched Data of Child Care Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 408, Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). [Downloadable!]
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Chris M. Herbst & Erdal Tekin, 2008. "Child Care Subsidies and Child Development," NBER Working Papers 14474, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Robert J. Lemke & Robert J. Witt & Ann Dryden Witte, 2004. "The Transition from Welfare to Work," Department of Economics Discussion Papers 0504, Department of Economics, University of Surrey. [Downloadable!]
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