IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v82y2001i4p817-843.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Do Attitudes and Personality Characteristics Affect Socioeconomic Outcomes? The Case of Welfare Use by Young Women

Author

Listed:
  • Mark Evan Edwards
  • Robert Plotnick
  • Marieka Klawitter

Abstract

Objective. We estimate a model of social‐psychological determinants of entry into Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC), the primary cash welfare program in the United States until 1996. Methods. Using information from the youngest cohorts of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, we estimate logit models of the probability of ever participating in AFDC and hazard models of the timing until first use of AFDC. Results. We find strong associations between welfare use and several attitudes and personality characteristics, but with two exceptions, most of the associations are not robust to the inclusion of exogenous background characteristics. There is consistent, strong evidence that positive attitudes toward school lower the likelihood of using welfare and increase duration until first receipt. Family background and social environment characteristics show strong robust effects. Conclusions. Our results point to relatively weak evidence for the hypothesis that individual attitudes in adolescence have a significant impact on initial welfare receipt.

Suggested Citation

  • Mark Evan Edwards & Robert Plotnick & Marieka Klawitter, 2001. "Do Attitudes and Personality Characteristics Affect Socioeconomic Outcomes? The Case of Welfare Use by Young Women," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 82(4), pages 817-843, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:82:y:2001:i:4:p:817-843
    DOI: 10.1111/0038-4941.00062
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/0038-4941.00062
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/0038-4941.00062?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
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Rampino, Tina & P. Taylor, Mark, 2012. "Educational aspirations and attitudes over the business cycle," ISER Working Paper Series 2012-26, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    2. Barón, Juan D. & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Erkal, Nisvan, 2008. "Cultural Transmission of Work-Welfare Attitudes and the Intergenerational Correlation in Welfare Receipt," IZA Discussion Papers 3904, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    3. Peter Gottschalk, 2005. "Can work alter welfare recipients' beliefs?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(3), pages 485-498.
    4. Peter Gottschalk & Sheldon Danziger, 2003. "Can Work Alter Welfare Recipients' Beliefs about How They Will Fare in the Labor Market?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 567, Boston College Department of Economics.
    5. Becchetti, Leonardo & Castriota, Stefano, 2008. "Does money affect happiness and self-esteem? The poor borrowers' perspective in a quasi-natural experiment," AICCON Working Papers 48-2008, Associazione Italiana per la Cultura della Cooperazione e del Non Profit.
    6. Rampino, Tina & P. Taylor, Mark, 2013. "Gender differences in educational aspirations and attitudes," ISER Working Paper Series 2013-15, Institute for Social and Economic Research.
    7. Madhu S. Mohanty, 2019. "Role of psychological variables in the determination of the worker's wage: Further evidence from the United States," Australian Economic Papers, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 58(1), pages 54-77, March.
    8. Bubonya, Melisa & Cobb-Clark, Deborah A., 2021. "Pathways of Disadvantage: Unpacking the Intergenerational Correlation in Welfare," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    9. de Araujo, Pedro & Lagos, Stephen, 2013. "Self-esteem, education, and wages revisited," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 120-132.
    10. Susan L. Averett & Cynthia Bansak & Julie K. Smith, 2021. "Behind Every High Earning Man is a Conscientious Woman: The Impact of Spousal Personality on Earnings and Marriage," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 42(1), pages 29-46, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:bla:socsci:v:82:y:2001:i:4:p:817-843. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    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.