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Welfare reform and related policy changes have altered the context in which welfare-reliant women make choices about employment and family care. Using data from longitudinal qualitative interviews, we examined women's experiences of work-family tradeoffs and how they think their employment affected their children. Women identified multiple co-occurring costs and benefits of work for themselves and their children. Benefits included: increased income; increased self-esteem, feelings of independence, and social integration; and the ability to model work and self-sufficiency values for children. Costs included: working without increased income; overload, exhaustion, and stress; and less time and energy to be with, supervise, and support children. The relevance of these findings for family policy specialists and practitioners who work with low-income families is discussed.

Objective: The aim of this study is to determine the extent to which men’s later-life cognitive trajectories vary by veteran status. Method: We use Health and Retirement Study (HRS) data to estimate growth curve models examining men’s later-life cognitive trajectories by veteran status, war service status, and period of service. Analyses control for early-life characteristics that influence selection into military service and later-life cognition, and mid- to late-life characteristics that potentially mediate the relationship between military service and later-life cognition. Results: Veterans have higher cognition scores relative to nonveterans around retirement age, but their cognition scores decline more rapidly with increasing age, such that cognition scores are similar in both groups among the oldest old. Veterans who served during the Korean War have lower cognition scores around retirement age, but less steep age-related declines, than veterans who served during World War II. Discussion: Findings are discussed in relation to the extant literature, future research, potential service needs, and study limitations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Four years into the implementation of the 1996 federal welfare reform legislation, promising to "change welfare as we know it," a critical question remains unanswered: How are formerly welfare-reliant families faring as they make the transition to work? Drawing on longitudinal, ethnographic data collected under the auspices of Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation's Project on Devolution and Urban Change, we examine changes in women's employment and income, and their families' well-being. This paper provides insights into how stable employment accompanied by increases in family income may improve family well-being. However, few families in the sample had income increases that were significant enough to change their material circumstances substantially. This paper also shows that not all families benefited from the move to employment-those who had unstable, low wage jobs without much gain in income experienced fewer benefits than those who had stable employment. Sometimes families relying on low- wage, unstable jobs were worse off than they were on welfare. The effects of such employment on single parents, and their increased absence from the household, often contributed to greater disruption in family routines, causing children to be worse off. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]