Maternal Work Behavior under Welfare Reform: How Does the Transition from Welfare to Work Affect Child Development? JCPR Working Paper.

Using data from a longitudinal sample of former and current welfare recipients in Michigan spanning 1997 through 1999, the Womens Employment Study, this analysis examined how transitions from welfare to work affect parenting behavior and child behavior problems. Researchers used a fixed-effects regression design to control for all time-invariant characteristics of mothers and children that might bias estimates of the associations between maternal work behavior and child well-being. The sample used was 575 women with a focal child (76% of the total study sample). Findings show that moving from welfare reliance to combining welfare and work is associated with a decrease in harsh parenting, an increase in positive parenting, and decreases in both internalizing and externalizing behavior problems among children. No evidence was found that parenting practices account for the associations between the transition from welfare to work and childrens behavior problems. Overall, these results suggest that policies that allow women to combine welfare and work may be most beneficial for children. (Contains 1 figure, 4 tables, and 39 references.) (Author/SLD)