This article examines the employment and child care responses of families participating in 10 experimental welfare reform programs conducted in the United States between 1989 and 2002. For the programs analyzed, child care use increases by about the same amount as the increase in employment. Most of the increased child care comprises informal care by a relative, particularly care by a sibling or a grandparent. Although there are significant differences in the child care responses across the various programs tested, there are no significant differences in the impacts for persons leaving welfare versus persons staying on welfare.
Blau, D., and E. Tekin.2001. The determinants and consequences of child care subsidies for single mothers. Discussion paper 383, presented at the Institute for the Study of Labor, Bonn, Germany.
2.
Bloom, D., J.J. Kemple, P. Morris, S. Scrivener, N. Verma, and R. Hendra.2000. The family transition program: Final report on Florida's initial time-limited welfare program. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation .
3.
Bloom, D., S. Scrivener, C. Michalopoulos, P. Morris, R. Hendra, D. Adams-Ciardullo, and J. Walter.2002. Final report on Connecticut's welfare reform initiative. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
4.
Brick, P.D., G. Kenney, R. McCullough-Harlin, S. Rajan, F. Scheuren, K. Wang, J.M. Brick, and P. Cunningham.1999. 1997 NSAF survey methods and data reliability. NSAF Methodology Report No. 1. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Congress, Economics and Statistics Administration, Bureau of the Census.
5.
Capizzano, J., G. Adams, and F. Sonenstein.2000a. Child care arrangements for children under five: Variation across states. Assessing the new federalism Policy Brief B-7. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute .
6.
Capizzano, J., K. Tout, and G. Adams.2000b. Child care patterns of school-aged children with employed mothers. Assessing the new federalism program Occasional Paper No. 41. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
7.
Crosby, D.A., L.A. Gennetian, and A.C. Huston.2001. The effects of welfare and employment programs on child care for preschool and young school-aged children. Next generation project. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
8.
Freedman, D.A.2006a. On regression adjustments to experimental data. Technical report, Statistics Department, University of California, Berkeley.
9.
Freedman, D.A.2006b. Statistical models for causation: What inferential leverage do they provide?Evaluation Review30 (December): 691—713.
10.
Friedlander, D., D.H. Greenberg, and P.K. Robins.1997. Evaluating government training programs for the disadvantaged. Journal of Economic Literature35 (4): 1809—55.
11.
Fuller, B., and S.L. Kagan.2000. Remember the children: Mothers balance work and child care under welfare reform. Growing Up in Poverty Project 2000, Wave 1 findings—California Connecticut, Florida. Berkeley: University of California.
12.
Gennetian, L.A., D.A. Crosby, and A.C. Huston.2001. The effects of welfare and employment programs on child care for infants and toddlers: Does child care assistance matter? Next Generation Project. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
13.
Gennetian, L.A., A. Gasman-Pines, A. Huston, D. Crosby, Y. Eun Chang, and E. Lowe.2001. A review of child care policies in experimental welfare and employment programs. Next Generation Project. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation .
14.
Gennetian, L.A., and C. Miller.2000. Reforming welfare and rewarding work: Final report on the Minnesota family investment program, Volume 2: Effects on children. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
15.
Hamilton, G., S. Freedman, L.A. Gennetian, C. Michalopoulos, J. Walter, D. Adams-Ciardullo, A. Gassman-Pines et al. 2001. How effective are different welfare-to-work approaches? Five-year adult and child impacts for eleven programs. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation and Administration for Children and Families, and U.S. Department of Education.
16.
Helburn, S.W.1995. Cost, quality, and child outcomes in child care centers. Technical report, Center for Research in Economic and Social Policy, Department of Economics, University of Colorado, Denver.
17.
Helburn, S.W., and B.R. Bergmann.2002. America's child care problem: The way out. New York: Palgrave.
18.
Hochberg, Y.1988. A sharper Bonferroni procedure for multiple tests of significance . Biometrika75 (4): 800—802.
19.
Hofferth, S.L., A. Brayfield, S. Deich, and P. Holcomb.1991. National child care survey, 1990. Report 91—95. Washington, DC: The Urban Institute.
20.
Kemple, J., D. Friedlander, and V. Fellerath.1995. Florida's project independence: Benefits, costs, and two-year impacts of Florida's JOBS program. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation .
21.
Miller, C., V. Knox, L.A. Gennetian, M. Dodoo, J.A. Hunter, and C. Redcross.2000. Reforming welfare and rewarding work: Final report on the Minnesota family investment program, Volume 1: Effects on adults. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
22.
Rosenbaum, P., and D.B. Rubin.1983. The central role of the propensity score in observational studies for causal effects. Biometrika70 (1): 41—55.
23.
Rosenbaum, P.R., and D.B. Rubin.1984. Reducing bias in observational studies using sub-classification on the propensity score. Journal of the American Statistical Association79 (387): 516—24.
24.
United States General Accounting Office.2001 . Child care: States increased spending on low-income families, GAO-01—293. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
