Safety Net
Idealizing Parenthood Functions to Justify Policy Neglect of Parents' Economic Burdens
Richard Eibach & Steven Mock
Social Issues and Policy Review, December 2011, Pages 8-36
Abstract:
Despite the fact that raising children contributes to the public good, parents receive little government assistance with their childrearing expenses. We suggest that people believe parents deserve little public assistance in part because they accept common myths that idealize the emotional rewards of parenthood. We review research demonstrating that parents accept these parenthood idealizing myths to alleviate dissonance about their costly investments in children whereas nonparents accept these myths to defend against the idea that the system unjustly exploits parents. Furthermore, when these parenthood idealizing myths are experimentally primed both parents and nonparents become less supportive of expanding government assistance to parents. We conclude by reviewing suggestions for how this research into the psychological functions of parenthood idealizing myths can help design more effective messaging strategies to persuade people to support policies that would expand public assistance to parents.
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Children's Schooling and Parents' Investment in Children: Evidence from the Head Start Impact Study
Alexander Gelber & Adam Isen
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
Parents may have important effects on their children, but little work in economics explores how children's schooling opportunities impact parents' investment in children. We analyze data from the Head Start Impact Study, in which a lottery granted randomly-chosen preschool-aged children the opportunity to attend Head Start. We find that Head Start causes a substantial and significant increase in parents' involvement with their children - such as time spent reading to children, math activities, or days spent with children by fathers who do not live with their children - both during and after the period when their children are potentially enrolled in Head Start. We discuss a variety of mechanisms that are consistent with our findings, including a simple model we present in which Head Start impacts parent involvement in part because parents perceive their involvement to be complementary with child schooling in the production of child qualities.
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Welfare Policymaking and Intersections of Race, Ethnicity, and Gender in U.S. State Legislatures
Beth Reingold & Adrienne Smith
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Welfare policy in the American states has been shaped profoundly by race, ethnicity, and representation. Does gender matter as well? Focusing on state welfare reform in the mid-1990s, we test hypotheses derived from two alternative approaches to incorporating gender into the study of representation and welfare policymaking. An additive approach, which assumes gender and race/ethnicity are distinct and independent, suggests that female state legislators - regardless of race/ethnicity - will mitigate the more restrictive and punitive aspects of welfare reform, much like their African American and Latino counterparts do. In contrast, an intersectional approach, which highlights the overlapping and interdependent nature of gender and race/ethnicity, suggests that legislative women of color will have the strongest countervailing effect on state welfare reform - stronger than that of other women or men of color. Our empirical analyses suggest an intersectional approach yields a more accurate understanding of gender, race/ethnicity, and welfare politics in the states.
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The Progressivity of Social Security
Julia Lynn Coronado, Don Fullerton & Thomas Glass
B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, November 2011
Abstract:
How much does the current social security system redistribute from rich to poor? We propose alternative concepts of well-being that can be used to classify individuals from rich to poor, and we show how social security redistributes differently under each concept. We use the PSID to estimate lifetime wage profiles and actual earnings each year for a sample of 1778 individuals, and we use mortality probabilities to calculate expected payroll taxes and social security benefits. For a given set of "facts" about the net flows experienced each year by each individual, measured progressivity depends on many assumptions. This paper attempts to capture and to quantify all of the data and characteristics relevant to determine each individual's "income" under several definitions. We then use each definition of income to classify individuals from rich to poor and to calculate the progressivity of social security. We proceed in seven steps. First, we classify individuals by annual income and use Gini coefficients to find that social security is highly progressive. Second, we reclassify individuals on the basis of lifetime income and find that social security is less progressive. Third, we remove the cap on measured earnings and find that social security is even less progressive. Fourth, we switch from actual to potential lifetime earnings (the present value of the wage rate times 4000 hours each year). This measure captures the value of leisure and home production, so those out of the labor force are less poor, and net payments to them are less progressive. Fifth, we assign to each married individual half of the couple's income. The low-wage spouse is then not so poor, and social security becomes even less progressive. Sixth, we incorporate mortality probabilities that differ by potential lifetime income. Since the rich live longer and collect benefits longer, social security is no longer progressive. Finally, we increase the discount rate from 2% to 4%, which puts relatively more weight on the earlier-but-regressive payroll tax and less weight on the later-but-progressive benefit schedule. Depending on the definition of income used to classify people, the overall social security system could be deemed progressive, only mildly progressive, or neutral. With an even-higher discount rate, it could even be deemed regressive.
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Accounting and the welfare state: The missing link
Tim-Frederik Oehr & Jochen Zimmermann
Critical Perspectives on Accounting, forthcoming
Abstract:
In recent years, nation states have internationalized and privatized accounting regulation by extensive use of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). However, major differences between national accounting regulatory systems persist. In this paper we argue that a country's societal motives and values, best captured by the type of welfare state the country employs, shape the extent to which accounting regulations converge. Moreover, the welfare state approach explains the development and dynamics of accounting systems more completely than the conventional explanatory variables - legal and financial systems. The connection between the welfare state type and the way in which various corporate constituencies' interests are balanced is first examined by constructing an ideal type of accounting regulation for each type of welfare state; then country case studies are examined to show how the welfare state explains differences in accounting regulation between countries.
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Maya Rossin-Slater, Christopher Ruhm & Jane Waldfogel
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
This analysis uses March Current Population Survey data from 1999-2010 and a differences-in-differences approach to examine how California's first in the nation paid family leave (PFL) program affected leave-taking by mothers following childbirth, as well as subsequent labor market outcomes. We obtain robust evidence that the California program more than doubled the overall use of maternity leave, increasing it from around three to six or seven weeks for the typical new mother - with particularly large growth for less advantaged groups. We also provide suggestive evidence that PFL increased the usual weekly work hours of employed mothers of one-to-three year-old children by 6 to 9% and that their wage incomes may have risen by a similar amount.
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Till von Wachter, Jae Song & Joyce Manchester
American Economic Review, December 2011, Pages 3308-3329
Abstract:
Longitudinal administrative data show that rejected male applicants to the Disability Insurance (DI) program who are younger or have low-mortality impairments such as back pain and mental health problems exhibit substantial labor force attachment. While we confirm that employment rates of older rejected applicants are low, continued high numbers of younger and low-mortality beneficiaries have raised the potential employment of DI beneficiaries. Three findings support economic inducement to apply. Mean preapplication earnings have fallen, rejected applicants experience preapplication declines in earnings, and beneficiaries whose first applications were rejected at the DDS level but who ultimately received benefits exhibit substantial employment.
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Jeremy Schwartz
Applied Economics, Spring 2013, Pages 1167-1183
Abstract:
During the 2007-2010 economic downturn, the US temporarily increased the duration of Unemployment Insurance (UI) by 73 weeks, higher than any prior extension, raising concerns about UI's disincentive effects on job search. This article examines the effect of temporary benefit extensions using a Regression Discontinuity (RD) approach that addresses the endogeneity of benefit extensions and labour market conditions. Using data from the 1991 recession, the results indicate that the Stand-by Extended Benefit (SEB) program has a significant, although somewhat limited, impact on county unemployment rates and the duration of unemployment. The results suggest that the temporary nature of SEB benefit extensions may mitigate their effect on search behaviour.
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Erin Godfrey & Hirokazu Yoshikawa
Child Development, forthcoming
Abstract:
Drawing on developmental and policy research, this study examined whether 3 dimensions of caseworker-recipient interaction in welfare offices functioned as critical ecological contexts for recipient families. The sample consisted of 1,098 families from 10 welfare offices in National Evaluation of Welfare to Work Strategies (NEWWS). In multilevel analyses, caseworker support, caseload size, and emphasis on employment predicted 5-year quarterly trajectories of earnings, income, and welfare receipt. Recipients in offices characterized by high support had steeper increases in earnings and income; those in offices with high caseload size had steeper decreases in income and welfare receipt; and those in offices with high emphasis on employment had steeper decreases in welfare receipt. These economic trajectories were associated with children's reading and math achievement and internalizing behavior at ages 8-10.
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Family Proximity, Childcare, and Women's Labor Force Attachment
Janice Compton & Robert Pollak
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
We show that close geographical proximity to mothers or mothers-in-law has a substantial positive effect on the labor supply of married women with young children. We argue that the mechanism through which proximity increases labor supply is the availability of childcare. We interpret availability broadly enough to include not only regular scheduled childcare during work hours but also an insurance aspect of proximity (e.g., a mother or mother-in-law who can provide irregular or unanticipated childcare). Using two large datasets, the National Survey of Families and Households and the public use files of the U.S. Census, we find that the predicted probability of employment and labor force participation is 4-10 percentage points higher for married women with young children living in close proximity to their mothers or their mothers-in-law compared with those living further away.
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Welfare state expenditure and inequalities in voluntary association participation
Erik van Ingen & Tom van der Meer
Journal of European Social Policy, October 2011, Pages 302-322
Abstract:
There are large gaps in associational involvement along education, income and gender lines and across different organizations. This paper examines the extent to which these gaps vary across countries. We argue that, next to the discussion about crowding out effects that is often found in the literature, it is important to look at conditioning effects of welfare states. Through welfare state policies, resources are redistributed in society. In turn, these resources enable participation in voluntary associations and organizations. Our analyses - based on multi-level models and data of the European Social Survey - indicate that extensive welfare state expenditures reduce participatory inequalities, with some variation according to the kind of organization under study. Our findings suggest that conditioning effects of welfare states deserve greater attention in research and that participatory inequalities may be reduced by social policy.
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Verónica Amarante et al.
NBER Working Paper, December 2011
Abstract:
There is limited empirical evidence on whether unrestricted cash social assistance to poor pregnant women improves children's birth outcomes. Using program administrative micro-data matched to longitudinal vital statistics on the universe of births in Uruguay, we estimate that participation in a generous cash transfer program led to a sizeable 15% reduction in the incidence of low birthweight. Improvements in mother nutrition and a fall in labor supply, out-of-wedlock births and mother's smoking all appear to contribute to the effect. We conclude that, by improving child health, unrestricted unconditional cash transfers may help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.
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Activating Lone Parents: An Evidence-Based Policy Appraisal of Welfare-To-Work Reform in Britain
Tina Haux
Social Policy and Society, January 2012, Pages 1-14
Abstract:
The 2008 welfare reform introduced by the previous Labour government requires (most) lone parents with older children to be available for work. This article examines the potential effect of this reform on the employment rate of lone parents and whether the age of the youngest child is a good indicator of ‘ability to work'. It suggests that reform will not lead to the desired increase as the target group is too small and the levels of multiple disadvantages within the group too high. ‘Ability to work' needs to be conceptualised more broadly if it is to mean ‘ability to get a job'.