Yale Bulletin and Calendar

April 19, 2002

Volume 30, Number 26

Study: Children's lives not improved by welfare reform

The slight economic gains felt by millions of single mothers who have moved off welfare and into low-wage jobs have not discernibly improved the living conditions of families or the daily lives of young children, according to a report released April 16 in Washington, D.C.

This new evidence was collected from families between 1998 and 2000 by leading scholars based at Yale, the University of California, and Columbia and Stanford universities.

After following over 700 single mothers for up to four years after they entered new welfare programs in California, Connecticut and Florida, the study team confirmed earlier findings that a majority of mothers have successfully found jobs. Yet, low wages coupled with high job turnover means that few families climbed above the poverty line, with the average mother earning just over $13,000 per year.

Few women could afford to move into better neighborhoods; one in six were still visiting food banks; one-fifth lived in roach-infested housing; and two in five continued to suffer from emotional depression. These features of children's home settings failed to improve over time, even as mothers' employment rates climbed.

"We discovered that moving women into low-wage jobs is simply no guarantee that families will be better off or that young children will grow up in more nurturing homes," says study co-director Bruce Fuller, professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

While political leaders generally have celebrated the precipitous fall in welfare caseloads, from 5 million in 1994 to 2.1 million late last year, little has been known about how young children are faring as their single mothers spend less time at home and more time in the labor force.

"Given that America wants children who are ready for school, it's time we get realistic about what helps or hinders that, and welfare reform is a significant and far too frequently neglected part of that picture" says study coauthor Sharon Lynn Kagan, an international expert, professor of child and family policy at Columbia University and senior research scientist and professor in Yale's Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center.

These findings -- stemming from the first national look at how toddlers and preschoolers have fared since then-President Clinton "ended welfare as we knew it" -- were released as the White House is floating proposals to provide incentives for marriage, to double work requirements for mothers and to put more women to work. More broadly, the President signaled a wider focus on boosting overall family well-being and child development in announcing his welfare reform proposals in February, but few specifics related to young children have been provided.

After interviewing women twice over two years, visiting their homes, assessing children and compiling economic data, the researchers could detect few improvements in parenting practices, such as reading with their children or setting regular meal times, nor were discernible gains observed in mothers' affection toward their children. Two to four years after entering work-first programs, mothers continued to face everyday challenges of having enough money to meet the rent or buy enough food for their toddlers, note the researchers.

The amount of television viewing did go up for young children, except for those youngsters who entered child care centers or preschools. For youngsters in child care centers or preschool, this may be an indirect benefit of welfare reform, according to the authors: less reliance on TV and more opportunity for active learning experiences.

The authors note that many proponents of welfare reform argued in 1996 that employed mothers would offer stronger role models and provide a higher standard of living.

One encouraging finding, say the researchers, is that toddlers who entered child care centers over the past two years -- representing one-third of those studied -- displayed higher levels of emerging literacy skills, compared to those who did not enter center-based programs. Children entering higher-quality centers displayed even steeper learning curves, they note.

"Child care hassles remain a high hurdle as women try to move from welfare to work," says the study's Florida co-director, Jan McCarthy. "Two in five mothers reported that they had quit a job, or passed up a new job, due to the lack of affordable child care options."

The study revealed several unanticipated effects of welfare reform. In Connecticut, for example, women participating in the state's Jobs First program showed a lower marriage rate three years after entry, compared to a control group that faced less pressure to work.

"These women -- many of whom found jobs and enjoyed gains in net income -- appear to be taking the idea of self-reliance quite seriously," says Jude Carroll, the Connecticut site coordinator. "Such findings need to be factored into the Bush proposal that asks Congress for $300 million to experiment with incentives for single women who get married."

Other findings from the study include:

* While mothers' income rose significantly, broader measures of the family's well-being showed little progress. One-fifth of all mothers, for instance, had cut the size of meals for their children because they didn't have enough cash to buy more food, a proportion of families that did not decline over time. Women in the Connecticut sample reported over $400 in total savings, on average, and $4,700 in debts.

* Two in every five women suffered from significant levels of emotional depression. Their mental health did not improve, on average, over the follow-up period in California and Florida. This is more than twice the incidence of depression found in the general population.

* Many children across the three states displayed developmental delays by age 3 or 4 years. The average child scored at the 30th percentile on a comprehensive assessment of cognitive and language proficiency. Just over 30% of the study children could write their first name correctly, compared to 66% in a sample of Head Start children and 70% in a national sample of 4-year-olds.

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