AFDC and Births to Unwed Women
نویسنده
چکیده
Most work by economists has been inconclusive when seeking a consistent relationship between income-support programs (like Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC)) and births to unwed women (or, as the literature traditionally terms it, illegitimacy). But a recent study (Kimenyi and Mbaku (1995)) reports a large, positive and statistically-significant relationship when data are weighted to reflect differences in propensities toward illegitimacy. We find that the 1995 study appears to rely upon erroneous data and irregular econometric technique. When these are remedied, the major results are reversed. We then suggest that a switching regimes methodology, with parameters influenced by other variables, is more appropriate to the issue. Our empirical results confirm the literature‘s consensus that AFDC and illegitimacy do not appear to be strongly related. JEL classifications J13, I38
منابع مشابه
The Impact of Afdc on Young Women's Childbearing
This research seeks to reevaluate the relationship between AFDC and fertility by focusing on births to women through the age of twenty-three using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). Using discrete time hazard models, I examine the impact of AFDC on births directly associated with AFDC, on out-of-wedlock births, and on all births. I also examine the importance of AFDC on...
متن کاملThe Impact of Afdc on Birth Decisions and Program Participation
Recently, New Jersey and Wisconsin eliminated the practice of increasing the AFDC benefits of families that bear additional children while on the program. Policymakers seem to accept the notion that added benefits encourage participants to bear more children, despite little direct formal evidence. This paper uses data fiom the National Longitudinal Survey of Women to examine the impact of both ...
متن کاملWomen on Welfare: A Macroeconomic Analysis
Look at the dramatic change in family structure that has occurred recently, illustrated in Figure 1. In the United States, 23 percent of children lived with an unwed mother in 1998, compared with only 8 percent in 1960.1 Of this 15-percentage-point increase, about 6 percentage points are due to a rise in the rate of divorce; the remaining 9 percentage points arise from an increase in out-of-wed...
متن کاملWelfare Benefits and Family-Size Decisions of Never-Married Women
Since the 1970s, the out-of-wedlock birthrate has been increasing rapidly in the United States and has prompted several states to propose (and in some cases, enact) legislation to deny access to higher AFDC benefits for families in which the mother gives birth while receiving AFDC. The authors investigate whether AFDC benefit levels are systematically related to the family-size decisions of nev...
متن کاملFertility and Welfare Participation
Despite the attention that the fertility of welfare recipients has received recently, surprisingly little is known about it. This paper answers some basic questions about the phenomenon of welfare births. Among the findings from the March 1987 Current Population Survey are that 13.4 percent of all births are into the 7.3 percent of families receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFD...
متن کامل