Research suggests welfare changes can promote stable families

By mmarks on April 24, 2001, 2:33 p.m.

findings by researchers at Columbia and Princeton universities provide support for those who believe government can promote marriage and stable family life among the nation's most disadvantaged households. The findings are being published just as Congress begins the reauthorization process for landmark welfare legislation of 1996.

The findings, part of a five-year, $17 million research effort, "The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study," suggest that unwed parents have high hopes and expectations of having strong families, including marriage, but are severely hampered by poor education and low earnings. Changes in welfare and child support policies would go far to help, the researchers conclude.

Current welfare and child support policies create obstacles for unwed parents to stay together after the birth of their child despite these parents' desires to form families, the researchers found. As a remedy, they argue legislators should take a variety of steps to encourage family formation for unwed parents, including better child support enforcement, eliminating marriage penalties in the Earned Income Tax Credit and creating job training programs.

The research team, led by Irwin Garfinkel of Columbia University and Sara McLanahan of Princeton University, drew its conclusions from seven studies that appear in "Fragile Families and Welfare Reform," a special April issue of Children and Youth Services Review, a social work journal. Those studies are based on interviews with 2,325 mothers and 1,759 fathers at the time of birth in seven U.S. cities (Austin, Texas, Baltimore, Md., Detroit, Mich., Newark, N.J., Oakland, Calif., Philadelphia, Pa., and Richmond, Va.).

"Current welfare and child support policies too often undermine rather than strengthen fragile family ties," said Garfinkel. "The 1996 law made improvements in this area, but not enough. Because welfare includes an income test, it encourages couples to live apart-or to pretend to do so-pushing fathers out of the picture."

"One way to reduce disincentives to marriage and co-habitation in welfare policy is to ensure that fathers who live apart from their children pay child support," said McLanahan. "However, child support enforcement alone is insufficient. Bolstering education and job-training programs as well as conflict resolution and drug and alcohol treatment programs soon after the birth of the baby is crucial. Offering these services years later, after a father's relationship with the mother has ended, is too late to help the nation's fragile families."

Click here to read the complete news release.

Contact: Marilyn Marks (609) 258-3601

Related Stories

Study: Stereotypes of New York's unwed parents misplaced
 .

Fifteen-year national survey of 'fragile families' fuels wide range of research .

The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study has played a foundational role in helping researchers understanding the capabilities and deficits of unmarried parents and the challenges faced by their children. The project, led by Sara McLanahan, the William S. Tod Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs and director of Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, has also proven important to researchers studying a wide range of related topics.

Youth with parents and household members in prison more likely to have first baby before marriage .

A Princeton University study finds youth who are between ages 10 and 14 when a household member goes to prison are at a 41 percent greater risk for giving birth to their first child before marriage. This risk is especially pronounced when the father or an extended household member who is not a parent — such as a cousin, aunt, uncle or friend — is imprisoned.

Fragile Families study spawns research and teaching opportunities .

It was just before noon on a Thursday in late September when a group of professors, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows and staff members assembled in a teleconference room in the basement of Wallace Hall. The teleconference, which meets every other week, brings together students and faculty at the three universities who are conducting research using Princeton’s Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study.

Stressful environments genetically affect African American boys .

Stressful upbringings can leave imprints on the genes of children as young as age 9, according to a study led by Princeton University and Pennsylvania State University researchers. Such chronic stress during youth leads to physiological weathering similar to aging.

Fragile Families study earns $17 million federal award .

Researchers at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs have been awarded $17 million from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to support a new round of data collection for the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. 

Great Recession onset spurs harsh parenting, researchers find .

The onset of the Great Recession and, more generally, deteriorating economic conditions lead mothers to engage in harsh parenting, such as hitting or shouting at children, a team of researchers has found. But the effect is only found in mothers who carry a gene variation that makes them more likely to react to their environment.