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This study offers knowledge about factors associated with a key type of family change, namely, two- to-three-generation household transformations, which are poorly understood, despite increasing numbers of three-generation households, especially ones headed by females. Using a representative sample of 5,874 Australian children, results showed that the circumstances of children in two-generation households differed greatly by family structure. Thus, before investigating determinants of three-generation household formation, children were first grouped as living in either two-parent or single-mother households. For both groups of children, several factors were found associated with three-generation household formation. In two-parent households, the odds of three-generation household formation decreased with mothers’ ages, fathers’ higher educational attainments, and more children, but increased as children grew older. In single-mother households, the odds of three-generation household formation decreased with mothers’ higher educational attainments, increasing income, and more children, but increased if mothers had never been married and worked more hours. Living in rural areas decreased odds of three-generation household formation for children in both types of households. Overall, grandparents appear to play a relatively more important resource role in three-generation, mother only households than in three-generation, two-parent households.

This research examines the relationship between disabilities in families and returns to welfare. Past studies of welfare recidivism have long theorized that disabilities played a central role in returns to welfare among former recipients, but lacked data to test the hypothesis. Hypothesis tests support the theory that both child and maternal disabilities, which act as barriers to self-sufficiency, increase rates of TANF re-entry and SSI entry. We show that because past studies did not account for disabilities on the odds of returning to welfare, effects of work, number of children, and past receipt of TANF are somewhat overstated. Our findings add to the literature on welfare recidivism and have implications for welfare reforms that emphasize work and lifetime limits on benefits.

Considerable increases in the numbers of children living with grandparents have prompted concerns over their economic well-being and grandparents’ use of welfare programs. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, I profile the economic well-being of children living with grandparents and estimate the likelihood of receiving two welfare programs: food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF). Findings suggest that identifying the exact living arrangements of children is pivotal to understanding differences in economic disadvantage and welfare receipt among children living with grandparents. Although children in grandmother-only, no parent present families are the most likely to be poor, they are not the children most likely to receive welfare. The children most likely to receive welfare live with their single mothers and grandparents in three-generation households.

This research examines the relationship between disabilities in families and exits from welfare. Controlling for variations in characteristics known to be associated with welfare exits, this study investigates and documents that specific configurations of disabilities in families are also strongly associated with reduced rates of welfare exits. The impact of a child with a disability on welfare exits is similar to the mother's own disability, with an impact equivalent in magnitude to minority status. The presence of a child with a disability limits the chances that a mother with disability will leave welfare. Our findings add to the literature on welfare dependency and have implications for welfare reforms that emphasize work, self-sufficiency, and reducing poverty.

This study analyzed welfare receipt among children across alternative living arrangements. Findings suggest more variation in patterns of public assistance receipt than previously reported, and that these variations are affected by the presence of cohabiting fathers. Results argue for more precise indicators of children's living arrangements so that levels of welfare receipt among children are comparable. Indicators should categorize children according to whether they live with their married or cohabiting parents. Once children's relationships with coresiding males were determined, findings showed that children living with fathers were less likely to receive public assistance except for supplemental security income. Results confirm that children growing up with unmarried mothers who do not cohabit with adult males are the most likely to receive welfare and the most disadvantaged. Results also show, however, that children living with cohabiting biological parents are more likely to receive welfare than children living with married parents.

Critics of welfare reform claim that children will leave their mother's care in states that restrict benefits because mothers will lack sufficient income to raise children. This article investigates these claims and the relationship between the generosity of welfare benefits and children's living arrangements. I found that mother‐child separations were lower in states with higher welfare benefits, suggesting that higher welfare benefits lower the cost to single mothers of raising children. Given reluctance among states to provide income support for families, this suggests that policies designed to reduce welfare dependence may raise rates of mother‐child separations.

This study investigates whether financial agreements between husbands and wives, the cost of child care, mothers' wages, and sources of income, rather than just aggregate income, affect a mother's decision to use child care. This study finds that for working mothers, the price of child care is what matters, not their wages; for nonemployed mothers, the reverse is true. However, similar patterns for income effects are found for all mothers. Husbands' incomes do not affect mothers' child care choices, but mothers' own abilities to pay and sources of nonwage income do affect their child care choices. The only detected effect of spouses' incomes on wives' child care choices occurs when husbands pool their incomes with their wives' incomes. Hence, although market child care is a collective consumption good, not all wives in two-parent families have access to husbands' incomes with which to pay for child care.