IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/crcwel/wp99-11-ff-garfinkel.pdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Fragile Families and Welfare Reform

Author

Listed:
  • Irwin Garfinkel

    (Columbia University)

  • Sara McLanahan

    (Princeton University)

  • Kristen Harknett

    (Princeton University)

Abstract

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is designed to shift more of the responsibility for poor children from government to parents. To accomplish this goal, the new law requires welfare clients to work and limits the total number of years they can receive assistance. In addition, the new legislation requires unwed fathers to establish paternity and strengthens child support enforcement among nonresident fathers. Although many people believe that poor children would be better off if their mothers worked and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing, the scientific evidence for these assumptions is weak. We know very little about the ability of poor parents to support their children, and we know even less about their ability to cooperate with one another.

Suggested Citation

  • Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan & Kristen Harknett, 1999. "Fragile Families and Welfare Reform," Working Papers 980, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:crcwel:wp99-11-ff-garfinkel.pdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://fragilefamilies.princeton.edu/sites/fragilefamilies/files/wp99-11-ff-garfinkel.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March.
    2. T. Paul Schultz, 1994. "Marital Status and Fertility in the United States: Welfare and Labor Market Effects," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 29(2), pages 637-669.
    3. Sanders Korenman & David Neumark, 1991. "Does Marriage Really Make Men More Productive?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 26(2), pages 282-307.
    4. Lucia A. Nixon, 1997. "The Effect of Child Support Enforcement on Marital Dissolution," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 32(1), pages 159-181.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Mincy, Ronald B. & Dupree, Allen T., 2001. "Welfare, child support and family formation," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6-7), pages 577-601.
    2. Robert I. Lerman & Elaine Sorenson, 2003. "Child Support: Interactions between Private and Public Transfers," NBER Chapters, in: Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, pages 587-628, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. repec:pri:crcwel:wp02-07-ff-mincy is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Carol Harvey & Michael J. Camasso & Radha Jagannathan, 2000. "Evaluating Welfare Reform Waivers under Section 1115," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 165-188, Fall.
    5. Ronald B. Mincy & Chien-Chung Huang, 2002. "The M Word: The Rise and Fall of Interracial Coalitions On Fathers And Welfare Reform," Working Papers 963, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    6. Ronald Mincy & Shoshana Grossbard & Chien-Chung Huang, 2005. "An Economic Analysis of Co-Parenting Choices: Single Parent, Visiting Father, Cohabitation, Marriage," Labor and Demography 0505004, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S. & Tienda, Marta & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 2001. "Fragile families and welfare reform: An introduction," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 277-301.
    2. repec:pri:crcwel:wp99-11-ff-garfinkel is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan & Kristen Harknett, 1999. "Fragile Families and Welfare Reform," JCPR Working Papers 113, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    4. Irwin Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan & Marta Tienda & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2002. "Fragile Families and Welfare Reform: An Introduction," JCPR Working Papers 259, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    5. S. McLanahan & I. Garfinkel, "undated". "The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study: Questions, Design, and a Few Preliminary Results," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1208-00, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    6. Francine D. Blau & Lawrence M. Kahn & FJane Waldfogel, 2004. "The Impact of Welfare Benefits on Single Motherhood and Headship of Young Women: Evidence from the Census," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(2).
    7. Harknett, Kristen & Hardman, Laura & Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S., 2001. "The Fragile Families study: social policies and labor markets in seven cities," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(6-7), pages 537-555.
    8. Chien-Chung Huang, 2001. "The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on Nonmarital and Marital Births: Does It Differ by Racial and Age Groups?," JCPR Working Papers 246, Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research.
    9. Neumark, David & Powers, Elizabeth T., 2005. "SSI, Labor Supply, and Migration," IZA Discussion Papers 1820, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    10. Sara McLanahan & Irwin Garfinkel, 2000. "The Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study: Questions, Design, and a Few Preliminary Results," Working Papers 982, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    11. Jeff Grogger & Stephen G. Bronars, 2001. "The Effect of Welfare Payments on the Marriage and Fertility Behavior of Unwed Mothers: Results from a Twins Experiment," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 109(3), pages 529-545, June.
    12. Libertad González Luna, 2005. "The determinants of the prevalence of single mothers: A cross-country analysis," Economics Working Papers 876, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    13. Francine D. Blau, 1998. "Trends in the Well-Being of American Women, 1970-1995," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 36(1), pages 112-165, March.
    14. Dickert-Conlin, Stacy & Houser, Scott, 1998. "Taxes and Transfers: A New Look at the Marriage Penalty," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(2), pages 175-217, June.
    15. Aaron S. Yelowitz, 1998. "Will Extending Medicaid to Two-Parent Families Encourage Marriage?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(4), pages 833-865.
    16. Leonard M. Lopoo & Kerri M. Raissian, 2014. "U.S. Social Policy and Family Complexity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 654(1), pages 213-230, July.
    17. David Neumark & Elizabeth T. Powers, 2005. "The Effects of Changes in State SSI Supplements on Preretirement Labor Supply," Public Finance Review, , vol. 33(1), pages 3-35, January.
    18. C. Huang & I. Garfinkel & J. Waldfogel, "undated". "Child Support and Welfare Caseloads," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1218-00, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    19. Dickert-Conlin, Stacy & Houser, Scott, 1998. "Taxes and Transfers: A New Look at the Marriage Penalty," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 2), pages 175-217, June.
    20. Marianne Bitler & Jonah Gelbach & Hilary Hoynes & Madeline Zavodny, 2004. "The impact of welfare reform on marriage and divorce," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(2), pages 213-236, May.
    21. Lewis, Dan & Konstantopoulos, Spyros & Altenbernd, Lisa, 2005. "The Correlates of Work in a Post-AFDC World: The Results from a Longitudinal State-Level Analysis," IZA Discussion Papers 1626, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).

    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:pri:crcwel:wp99-11-ff-garfinkel.pdf. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ccprius.html .

    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.