1. Studies in Public Welfare. Paper No. 12 (Part II): The Family, Poverty and Welfare Programs--Household Patterns and Government Policies.
- Author
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Joint Economic Committee, Washington, DC.
- Abstract
The papers in this volume deal with patterns of household composition and income sharing among low-income families as well as current and proposed Government policies directly related to family structure. Government policies relevant to family structure make up one set of topics. Irene Cox describes how public income transfer benefits and eligibility conditions vary for different family types and household units. Lee Rainwater, and Carol Stack and Herbert Semmel, recommend changes aimed at improving these Government policies. Harry Kause and Stack and Semmel discuss the Government role in determining paternity and in obtaining child support payments from absent fathers of children on welfare. Krause argues for increased vigor by Government in these two areas while Stack and Semmel content that such stricter enforcement would be self-defeating. The other major topics concern how low-income persons combine to form households and to share income. Marc Fried and Ellen Fitzgerald, Andrew Billingsley, Rainwater, and Stack and Semmel report findings on these patterns based on participant-observer studies of low-income families. They describe actual patterns of illegitimacy, marital instability, and household formation and dissolution. Billingsley also discusses some evidence from case studies dealing with the effects of family breakdown on the behavior and development of children. (Author/JM)
- Published
- 1973