Marriage patterns among unwed mothers: Before and after PRWORA

The promotion of marriage and two‐parent families became an explicit public policy goal with the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill. Marriage has the putative effect of reducing welfare dependency among single mothers, but only if they marry men with earnings sufficient to lift them and their children out of poverty. Newly released data from the 2002 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), along with data from the 1995 cycle, allow us to compare pre‐ and post‐PRWORA differences in (1) cumulative marriage rates among unwed mothers, and (2) patterns of marital choice (that is, differences in characteristics of the men these mothers marry, such as their education and employment status). Overall, our results show that unwed childbearing is associated with lower marriage rates and marital quality. Difference‐in‐difference models show that welfare reform was not strongly associated with pre‐ and post‐welfare reform changes in marriage among nonmarital birth mothers, even among the most disadvantaged mothers. Compared with other women, nonmarital birth mothers also were less likely than other women to marry “economically attractive” men in the post‐welfare reform period. The success of marriage promotion initiatives may depend heavily on whether women themselves are “marriageable” and whether potential spouses have the ability to support a stable family life. © 2008 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

The effect of child support on welfare exits and re‐entries

Much of the literature on welfare dynamics has focused on the effects of recipient characteristics and state‐level characteristics such as welfare benefits and economic conditions; there has been very little analysis on the effects of child support. This paper, using the 1979‐1996 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, examines whether child support affects the likelihood of leaving and re‐entering welfare. The results indicate that strong child support enforcement is important in helping young mothers exit and stay off welfare. Women with $1000 child support payments in the previous year were 18 percent more likely to exit welfare and 12 percent less likely to re‐enter welfare. Compared with women in states that pursued child support least vigorously, women in states that had passed extensive child support enforcement legislation and that spent more money on child support enforcement were 79 percent more likely to exit welfare and about 60 percent less likely to re‐enter welfare. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Declining employment among young black less‐educated men: The role of incarceration and child support

In this paper, we explore the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of nonenrolled Black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less in the 1980s and 1990s. We focus on two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young Black men who have been incarcerated and (2) strengthened enforcement of child support policies. We analyze micro‐level data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups (CPS‐ORG), into which state‐level data over time on incarceration rates and child support enforcement have been merged. Our results indicate that previous incarceration and child support enforcement can account for half or more of the decline in employment activity among Black men aged 25–34. Previous incarceration also contributes to the decline among those aged 16–24. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management     

Resolution of Nonmarital Adolescent Pregnancy and the Transition to Adulthood: Educational Attainment and Financial Well-being

This paper compares educational and financial outcomes in early adulthood for four groups of men and women: those who never experienced a nonmarital adolescent pregnancy, those who ended a nonmarital adolescent pregnancy by abortion, those who married or cohabited and became parents in response to an adolescent pregnancy, and those who became parents but did not marry or cohabit following an adolescent pregnancy. The analyses are based on self-reports of 6,074 young men and women who were first surveyed as seventh grade students in Houston, Texas in 1971 and surveyed again between 1980 and 1988. Educational and financial outcomes in adulthood vary significantly depending on the occurrence of a nonmarital adolescent pregnancy, the resolution of nonmarital adolescent pregnancy, and the age at which adolescent pregnancy occurs. Results are discussed in relation to public policies encouraging family formation and educational support and occupational training for teen parents.     

Reducing child support debt and its consequences: Can forgiveness benefit all?

As child support debt owed nationally persists at enormous levels, both noncustodial parents and the custodial families who are not receiving support suffer significant hardships, and states are forced to expend greater resources on collection and enforcement efforts. This paper presents findings from an evaluation of a demonstration program developed to help noncustodial parents with large child support debts reduce their debt while simultaneously increasing child support paid to families, through gradual forgiveness of arrears conditional on payment of current child support obligations. The evaluation employs a randomized experimental design, nonexperimental analyses using propensity score matching and multilevel modeling techniques, and focus groups and follow‐up interviews. Results show a pattern of effects that suggests individuals responded to the program as intended. State‐ and family‐owed child support debt balances decreased for program participants, and participants paid more toward their child support obligations and arrears and made more frequent child support payments. The study findings suggest promise for the effectiveness of this program model in reducing child support debt burdens and in increasing families' receipt of child support, and they also point to ways in which the implementation of the program might be improved. © 2011 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Child support enforcement policy and unmarried fathers' employment in the underground and regular economies

Some scholars have suggested that a negative consequence of strengthening child support enforcement is to encourage fathers to shift from regular sector to underground employment. We employ data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the relationship between the strength of child support enforcement (CSE) and levels of underground and regular sector employment among unmarried fathers. We find that, in general, living in a city with stricter CSE is associated with fewer hours of underground employment. We find little evidence that stronger enforcement is associated with employment or hours in the regular sector. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Incentives,challenges, and dilemmas of TANF: A case study

This paper compares the incentives inherent in TANF (Temporary Assistance for Needy Families), the U.S. welfare system in place after the 1996 reforms, with those of TANF's predecessor, AFDC (Aid to Families with Dependent Children), using the experience in one state, Wisconsin, as an example. Is the new program successful in avoiding the “poverty trap” of the old welfare system, in which the marginal tax rates imposed on earnings and benefits were so high that they discouraged work effort outside a narrow earnings range? As women receiving assistance begin working more hours and earning more, income‐conditioned benefits (Food Stamps, EITC, Medicaid, and subsidies for child care) are reduced and withdrawn, in effect constituting a “tax” on earnings. Under TANF, there is more support for these families, at least in Wisconsin, and so economic well‐being should be higher for most women with earning in this range than it was under AFDC. But marginal tax rates under TANF remain high, and in some income ranges they are higher than under AFDC. Once in the work force, former TANF recipients have earnings over the long run that expose them to very high marginal tax rates, which decrease the benefits of working harder and make it very difficult to gain full eonomic independence. Evidence from other sources suggest that most low‐skilled women have earnings in the same range and so are likely to face similar reductions in benefits such as child care subsidies or the EITC as their earnings increase, even if they are not receiving welfare‐related benefits. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Discouraging Disadvantaged Fathers’ Employment: An Unintended Consequence of Policies Designed to Support Families

Substantial declines in employment and earnings among disadvantaged men may be exacerbated by child support enforcement policies that are designed to help support families but may have the unintended consequence of discouraging fathers’ employment. Disentangling causal effects is challenging because high child support debt may be both a cause and a consequence of unemployment and low child support order compliance. We used childbirth costs charged in unmarried mothers’ Medicaid‐covered childbirths, from Wisconsin administrative records, as an exogenous source of variation to identify the impact of debt. We found that greater debt has a substantial negative effect on fathers’ formal employment and child support payments, and that this effect is mediated by fathers’ prebirth earnings histories.     

The price of virtue

This article offers new evidence on the determinants of U.S. unwed birth rates from 1981 to 1990. We show that illegitimacy rates are positively and significantly correlated with payments under the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program over a period in which real AFDC payments declined. We attribute this result to a decline in the social sanctions for illegitimacy. Because social sanctions declined, so did the cost of deviance, as well as the price for which unwed women sold their virtue.     

Tax Code Knowledge and Behavioral Responses Among EITC Recipients: Policy Insights from Qualitative Data

We build on the robust quantitative literature on behavioral responses to the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) by using in‐depth qualitative interviews with 115 EITC recipients to examine how they understand and respond to its incentive structures regarding earnings, marriage, and childbearing. We find that respondents consider their tax refund as a whole, without differentiating the portion from the EITC; as a result, they cannot predict how their EITC refund would change if they altered their labor supply or marital status. Incentives for childbearing are better understood, but are not specific to the EITC; rather, parents respond to a combination of tax deductions and credits as a whole. Respondents would like to maximize their refunds, but most cannot or would not alter their behavior due to structural constraints they face in the labor and marriage markets. Rather than adjust work hours, defer marriage, or have additional children, respondents exhibit a different type of behavioral response to the incentive structure of the EITC: They alter their tax filing status in order to maximize their refunds. They routinely claim zero exemptions and deductions on their W‐4s, file their tax returns as head of household rather than as married, and divide children among the tax returns of multiple caregivers. Although some of these behaviors qualify as tax noncompliance, they emerge because the intricacies of the tax code conflict with the complexity and fluidity of finances and family life in low‐income households.     

Labor trajectories and reproductive behavior: a comparison between Mexico and Spain

Data from the 1987 Mexican National Survey of Fertility and Health and the fertility survey carried out by Spain's National Institute of Statistics in 1985 were the basis for a comparison of the fertility histories and labor force participation of women of different cohorts in the two countries. Both surveys included questions on employment before marriage, between marriage and the birth of the first child, and at the present time. Eight combinations were possible, including continuous employment in all three periods and no history of employment in any period. The survey populations included women ever married or in union, with at least one live-born child, and aged between 15 and 49 years for Mexico and 18 and 49 years in Spain. Economic conditions in Mexico and Spain are dissimilar, and women's labor force participation patterns have varied as well. The Mexican survey indicated a current labor force participation rate of 37% for women aged 20-49. 42% of women aged 30-39 were employed. In Spain, 43% of women aged 18-49 were economically active. Around 60% of widowed, divorced, separated, and single women were employed. In Mexico, 38.2% of respondents had not worked in any of the three periods, 20.4% had worked in all three, and 17/7% had worked only before the first marriage or union. 61.5% of Mexican respondents had worked in at least one of the three periods. The cohort born in 1957-61 appears to be transitional to a pattern in which work outside the home assumes greater importance. In Spain, 31.3% of respondents had worked only before the first marriage or union, 24.8% had never worked, and 23.7% had worked in all three periods. 75.2% had worked in at least one of the three periods. The older Spanish cohorts had lower rates of labor force participation and the younger cohorts tendered to have higher activity rates, combining motherhood and outside employment to a greater extent. The cohort aged 25-29 at the time of the survey, which had a high proportion of women working continuously in the three periods and an intense activity rate at the time of the survey, appeared to be the transitional cohort between traditional and modern lifestyles. Thus, in both countries the cohorts aged 25-29 were those which managed to combine childbearing with employment to the greatest extent. In both Mexico and Spain,, the women within the cohort aged 25-29 with the highest activity rates were those with higher levels of education and those living in larger cities.     

The Effect of the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998 on Rewarded and Unrewarded Performance Goals

This paper examines the impact of the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act (CSPIA) of 1998 on child support performance measures that are rewarded financially as well as outcomes that are not rewarded. Three of the five performance measures explicitly rewarded by CSPIA are reconstructed in this analysis, as are two child support outcomes that were considered for financial rewards but were ultimately rejected. Using a panel interrupted time series model with state fixed effects and state‐specific trends, this analysis finds that CSPIA had a statistically positive impact on just one rewarded performance goal, cost‐effectiveness, and negatively impacted an unrewarded child support outcome—collections sent to other states. Effect sizes suggest that CSPIA had little impact on child support performance, on balance. These results provide more evidence to the ongoing debate about the ability of performance incentives to improve public sector performance. It also suggests that reforming performance systems in response to perceived problems may create new gaming responses.     

Federal Cost Recovery in Child Support Enforcement: Incentives for Improving Long-Term Effectiveness

Over the last 15 years, the benefits of operating an efficient child support enforcement program has received greater attention. This article examines the general environment in which child support enforcement programs operate and describes the Virginia experience over the last three years, which has seen AFDC collections increase by over 45 percent and all collections increase by more than 60 percent.     

Child Support and the Affordable Care Act's Medicaid Expansions

A quickly developing literature has shown that the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) Medicaid expansions have improved health insurance coverage, health, and financial well‐being among low‐income adults without dependent children. This population includes noncustodial parents. With substantial overlap in the population that is typically obligated to pay child support and the population that has strongly benefited from the expansions, there may be potential implications for child support enforcement. In this paper, I examine the effect of public health insurance eligibility to low‐income adults on child support outcomes. I find that the ACA Medicaid expansions increased child support distributed to custodial families as arrears by 8.5 percent. Evidence also suggests current support distributions increased by about 2 percent. There were no significant effects on paying toward a child support order. Among unmarried mothers, the likelihood of child support receipt increased by 8 percent. These results imply that access to public health insurance can increase the ability of noncustodial parents to pay child support.     

Land and Water Institutions in the Blue Nile Basin: Setups and Gaps for Improved Land and Water Management

This study undertook an assessment and gap analysis of the institutional arrangements for improved land and water management in the Tana and Beles Sub‐basins highlands of the Blue Nile Basin. We explored the mandates and design features of the major land‐ and water‐related institutional arrangements. Focus group discussions, key informant interviews, and a literature review were used in the analysis. The results of our work reveal that a lot of progress has been made in creating an institutional framework for improved land and water management and the policies and laws hitherto developed reflect global policy changes consistent with the widespread adoption of the integrated water resources management (IWRM) principles. There are also cases where informal institutions replace formal institutions. Judged by their enforcement, the water resources management, pollution control standards, and regulations and land use rights are not enacted effectively because of poor enforcement capacity. Overall there is a tendency to focus on command‐and‐control type policies. There is a need to strengthen traditional institutions by drawing lessons from their strengths and establish the legitimacy of these institutions. There is also a need to improve formal policy design, developing policies with specific objectives, goals, targets, and overall institutional changes and resources through active adaptive management to maximize the level and effectiveness of institutional learning. Finally, more focus needs to be given to incentive‐based policies through increased use of positive incentives and more emphasis needs to be given to self‐enforcement rather than third‐party enforcement.     

Improving child support enforcement for children receiving SSI

Less than half of all children who receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and live in a single-parent home receive child support services. Although filing for child support is a condition of eligibility for income assistance programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), it is not a condition of eligibility for SSI benefits. Requiring single custodial parents applying for SSI on behalf of their children to pursue child support payments might result in more children on SSI receiving child support, and since the Social Security Administration (SSA) excludes one-third of child support when determining benefit amounts, increased receipt of child support would enhance the financial well-being of SSI children. Improving access to data on child support would enhance the integrity of the SSI program by reducing overpayments to children receiving child support. This article looks at the child support provisions in SSI and other means-tested programs and discusses policy options for improving receipt of child support and access to related data. Requiring cooperation with child support enforcement agencies would be consistent with the philosophy that the SSI program should serve as a program of last resort. Whenever possible, both parents should take primary responsibility for their children. While such a requirement has the potential to improve the financial status of children receiving SSI, factors such as their low-income status and their involvement with the TANF program raise questions about how much those children will actually benefit from such a requirement. Even if many additional children do not receive child support, the requirement demonstrates SSA's dedication to the stewardship of the SSI program. However, if custodial parents fail to comply with the requirement, children may be worse off as a result of the requirement. SSA should carefully pursue a requirement to induce cooperation while protecting children to the greatest extent possible. Improving access to child support data would enhance the integrity of the SSI program by reducing overpayments to children receiving child support. Given the reality of limited administrative resources as well as the apparent difficulties of gaining access to the needed child support data, SSA must decide which data matches to pursue and which requirements enhance the program enough to justify the additional resources. Although the options discussed in this article may be chosen independently, there are important interactions to consider. For example, although a requirement to pursue support might result in more children receiving child support, SSA would still rely on parents to report that income unless it was able to gain better access to child support data. Implementing the option to require cooperation with child support enforcement (CSE) agencies could improve verification of income from child support if field offices developed better communication with local CSE offices. However, by itself, it would not have as great an effect on overpayments as would having direct access to child support data. In a 1999 report, the General Accounting Office acknowledged that the potential benefit reductions would be offset by the cost for SSA to administer a child support cooperation requirement and by the costs to the CSE programs to provide services. The report suggested that the goals of promoting parental responsibility and increasing the income of children receiving SSI should be pursued despite the costs. Requiring cooperation may increase administrative costs by $6 million over 5 years and may result in program savings. Gaining access to data may be more expensive and may not prevent overpayments to the same extent as other data-matching workloads on which SSA has placed a priority. SSA should continue to work with federal child support enforcement and with individual states to develop a cost-effective way to identify child support income.     

Campaign‐Style Enforcement and Regulatory Compliance

This article examines the recoupling mechanism of campaign‐style enforcement and its effects on environmental regulatory compliance. Drawing on the policy implementation literature and institutional theory, the authors develop a conceptual model of campaign‐style enforcement in which both resource mobilization and power redistribution are theorized to address decoupling problems in regulatory compliance. The two‐pathway recoupling mechanism is evidenced by an empirical investigation of the implementation of China's energy conservation and emission reduction policy as part of that country's 11th Five‐Year Plan. Findings suggest that campaign‐style enforcement can effectively improve regulatory compliance when it addresses the efficiency/legitimacy conflict by providing policy incentives and reorganizing a clear hierarchy of political authority. The article concludes with a discussion of the strengths and limitations of campaign‐style enforcement.     

Cross-Border Trafficking in Nepal and India—Violating Women’s Rights

Human trafficking is both a human rights violation and the fastest growing criminal industry in the world. This article examines cross-border trafficking of girls and women in Nepal to India. It gives a brief explanation of what is meant by trafficking and then looks at the reasons behind trafficking. In Nepal, women and children are trafficked internally and to India and the Middle East for commercial sexual exploitation or forced marriage, as well as to India and within the country for involuntary servitude as child soldiers, domestic servants, circus entertainment, and factory workers. Nepal and India are both signatories to international conventions and bound by domestic law to combat trafficking, and yet, this scourge continues. There are many laws in place, both in Nepal and India, which regulate the trafficking and prostituting of girls and women. This article looks at how effective these laws and regulations actually are and will look at the reasons for the continuation of trafficking. Despite the formal recognition of girl trafficking as a major problem and the existence of laws to curtail it, trafficking continues. The major problem with Nepal’s and India’s domestic laws is in the lack of enforcement. Finally, this article will look at ways to fight trafficking and make the governments of India and Nepal more effective in their fight against trafficking.     

Subsidized housing,housing prices,and the living arrangements of unmarried mothers

Abstract

Although many studies estimate the effects of welfare benefits on mothers’ living arrangements, housing subsidies and prices are rarely the focus. This article uses a new longitudinal birth cohort study, the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, to examine the relationship between subsidized housing, housing prices, and the living arrangements of unmarried mothers three years after a nonmarital birth.

Results suggest that the availability of subsidized housing is negatively associated with marriage relative to living alone. Eligibility criteria and means testing in subsidized housing may make marriage a costly choice. Housing prices are positively associated with marriage, cohabitation, and living with family members relative to living alone. Economies of scale may be particularly important for single‐earner households when housing prices increase. Failure to control for housing costs and subsidies leads to underestimates of the effects of welfare and unemployment rates on the living arrangements of unmarried mothers.     

For richer or for poorer: Marriage as an antipoverty strategy

This study examines the effects of changes in family structure on children's economic well‐being. An initial shift‐share analysis indicates that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the 1998 child poverty rate would have been 4.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level of 18.3 percent. The March 1999 Current Population Survey is then used to conduct a second analysis in which marriages are simulated between single mothers and demographically similar, unrelated males. The microsimulation analysis addresses some of the shortcomings of the shift‐share approach by making it possible to account for the possibility of a shortage of marriageable men, to control for unobservable differences between married men and women and their unmarried counterparts, and to measure directly the effects of increases in marriage on the economic well‐being of children. Results from the microsimulation analysis suggest that, had the proportion of children living in female‐headed families remained constant since 1970, the child poverty rate would have been 3.4 percentage points lower than its actual 1998 level. Among children whose mother participated in a simulated marriage, the poverty rate would have fallen by almost two‐thirds. © 2002 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.