How Are Children and Families Faring a Decade After Welfare Reform? Evidence from Five Non-Experimental Panel Studies.

Not applicable.

Family Economic Well-Being Following the 1996 Welfare Reform: Trend Data from Five Non-Experimental Panel Studies.

This analysis summarizes trends in family economic well-being from five non-experimental, longitudinal welfare-to-work studies launched following the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The studies include a sizable group of parents and other caregivers who received TANF at the point of sample selection or shortly thereafter, and share a wide range of similar measures of economic well-being. This analysis provides descriptive information on how these families are faring over time. Our results confirm what has been found by previous studies. Many families remain dependent on public benefits, and are either poor or near-poor, despite gains in some indicators of economic well-being. We caution that these aggregate statistics may mask important heterogeneity among families.

Welfare, Work, and Health Care Access Predictors of Low-Income Children's Physical Health Outcomes.

This analysis examines whether young children's (N= 494) general physical health is associated with parental employment, welfare receipt, and health care access within a low-income population transitioning from welfare to work. A latent physical health measure derived from survey and medical chart data is used to capture children's poor health, and parental ratings of child health are used to identify excellent health. Controlling for a host of factors associated with children's health outcomes, results show that children of caregivers who are unemployed and off welfare have better health than children of caregivers who are working and off welfare. Children whose caregivers are unemployed and on welfare, or combining work and welfare, have health outcomes similar to children of caregivers who are working and off welfare. Health care access characteristics, such as gaps in health insurance coverage, source of primary care setting, and type of health insurance are associated with children's general physical health. Implications of these results for state TANF programs are discussed.

Intimate partner violence and child maltreatment: understanding intra- and intergenerational connections.

OBJECTIVE: The purpose of this study is to assess the extent to which intimate partner violence and different forms of child maltreatment occur within and across childhood and adulthood for a high-risk group of women. METHOD: Low-income adult women were interviewed, retrospectively, regarding their experiences with intimate partner violence and child maltreatment in childhood and adulthood, and intra- and intergenerational relationships between multiple forms of family violence were identified. RESULTS: Analyses demonstrated weak to moderate associations between various forms of violence within generations. Only weak support was found for the transmission of violence hypothesis that maltreated children are more likely to grow up to maltreat their own children. Stronger support was found for the theory of learned helplessness, whereby children maltreated or witness to violence during childhood are more likely to be victimized as an adult. CONCLUSION: The results from this study suggest that interventions with children who are identified for one form of victimization should be assessed for other forms of victimization, and interventions should also address learned behaviors or beliefs associated with continued or future victimization.

Welfare reform and health insurance: consequences for parents.

OBJECTIVES: We assessed the relation between the work promotion, welfare reduction, and marriage goals of welfare reform and the stability of health insurance of parents in transition from welfare to work. METHODS: We analyzed a panel survey (1999-2002) of a stratified random sample of Illinois families receiving welfare in 1998 (n=1363). RESULTS: Medicaid remains the foremost source of health insurance despite a significant decline in the proportion of parents with Medicaid. Regardless of work/welfare status in year 1, transitioning to work only or no work/no welfare increased the likelihood of having unstable health insurance in years 2 and 3 compared with those who remained on welfare only. CONCLUSIONS: Parents who meet the welfare reform goals of work promotion and reduction of welfare dependence experience significant loss and instability of health insurance.

Understanding the risks of child neglect: an exploration of poverty and parenting characteristics.

A strong association between poverty and child neglect has been established, but the mechanisms that explain this relationship have not been clearly articulated. This research takes advantage of survey and child maltreatment administrative data about families with young children and assesses the influence of poverty and parenting characteristics on subsequent child neglect. The authors find that indicators of poverty, such as perceived material hardship and infrequent employment, and parenting characteristics, such as low parental warmth, use of physical discipline, and allowing a child to engage in frequent television viewing, are predictive of child neglect. Parenting characteristics do not appear to mediate the link between perceived hardship and neglect, although they suppress the link between employment and neglect. Results from this study provide information that is highly relevant to the approach and design of child maltreatment prevention and intervention strategies.

Improving the measurement of child neglect for survey research: issues and recommendations.

There is a great need for developing and validating measures of child neglect that can be applied to survey samples outside of a child welfare context. A prospective assessment of child neglect would afford a better estimation of the etiology of various types of child neglect and would greatly inform the development of primary prevention strategies related to child maltreatment. This article offers guidance on the tasks involved with constructing new measures of neglect for prospective survey research. Methodological issues pertaining to child neglect measurement are discussed, and a framework is offered for developing neglect measures for survey research. A discussion is also offered on how this framework is being applied in an ongoing longitudinal study of low-income families with young children. The intended result of this exercise is to encourage the development of new child neglect measures for survey research with both high-risk and general populations.