Welfare reform programs have been characterized by three policy components: earnings supplements, mandatory employment services and time limits. The dramatic negative effects on children that some expected as a consequence did not occur, but neither did consistent positive effects.
The outcomes for infants and toddlers are as yet unknown, although there is some indication that mothers’ full-time work has negative consequences on children younger than nine months. Earnings supplements, designed to increase both employment and income, led to small but positive effects on preschool and elementary school-aged children’s developmental outcomes. These outcomes were most consistent for school achievement and cognitive test scores, and appeared to be sustained into the long term. However, programs that increased maternal employment without increasing income had few and inconsistent effects on children’s cognitive and social development.
The effects of welfare policies—particularly those with more generous earnings supplements—were most pronounced during two developmental transition periods: positive effects were found for children going from preschool into middle childhood, and negative effects were found for children making the transition out of middle childhood and into early adolescence. Possible factors leading to negative outcomes for teens may include harsher parenting as a result of working mothers’ stress, teenagers having to care for siblings and mothers having less time to supervise teens.
In general, poor-children’s outcomes have changed very little as a result of welfare reform. They continue to show lower levels of school involvement and higher levels of behavioural problems, regardless of whether or not their mothers receive welfare. Yet preschoolers of recent welfare-leavers have the highest levels of behavioural problems. Preschoolers and adolescents in sanctioned families also show problematic cognitive and behavioural outcomes. Mothers’ marital, educational, mental and physical health status, as well as their parenting practices, seem to account for most of the welfare group differences.
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