Welfare Reform and Child Well-Being

In their Research Article “Mothers' transitions from welfare to work and the well-being of preschoolers and adolescents” (7 March, p. [1548][1]), P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and colleagues report that such transitions were not associated with negative outcomes for preschoolers or young adolescents. Although their study was carefully implemented, it is important to point out that this analysis may have little to say about the effect of recent federal welfare policy on child well-being. Several studies have shown that only about one-third of the women who transition from welfare to work did so in response to public policy changes during the period of their study ([1][2], [2][3]). The remaining two-thirds of the transitions were caused by other factors such as the buoyant economy. Given that the causes of the transitions were different, the effect of such transitions may also be quite different. Unfortunately, the study by Chase-Lansdale and colleagues is unable to differentiate between women who made the transition because of welfare reform and those who made the transition for other reasons. Thus, they are unable to identify the effect of welfare reform policy on child well-being. The average effects reported by Chase-Lansdale et al. pertain to all transitions and are informative about the effect of welfare policy only if there is no heterogeneity in the effects of these transitions. This may explain why the results in the Chase-Lansdale et al. study are at odds with the results of random assignment experimental evaluations, which find some harmful effects ([2][3]); the experimental studies are designed to identify the effects caused by policy changes. The study by Chase-Lansdale et al. provides some interesting descriptive information about low-income families in three cities, but it provides little policy-relevant information that can inform the upcoming debate over reauthorization of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996. 1. 1.[↵][4] 1. R. M. Blank , J. Econ. Lit. XL, 1105 (2002) See. [OpenUrl][5][CrossRef][6] 2. 2.[↵][7] 1. J. Grogger, 2. J. Klerman, 3. L. Karoly , Consequences of Welfare Reform: A Research Synthesis (DRU_2676-DHHS (Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, 2002) See. # Response {#article-title-2} Kaestner makes a valid point that our study examined the effect of moving into employment and off of welfare in general, not specifically because of changes in welfare policies. For this reason, we agree that our results should not be taken as representing the consequences of any particular government welfare or work policy. But this does not mean that it is not highly relevant to the general welfare reform debate. Our results imply that it should not be presumed that moving women off welfare or into employment per se harms children, as many presume, because that does not seem to be true. It may instead depend on whether those women are moved off voluntarily or involuntarily, for example. In addition, if the goal is to help children and not just avoid harm, our study shows that simplistic policies that simply target employment or welfare receipt are misguided because the relationship between those variables and child outcomes is complex, depending on other variables (possibly, parenting style, home environment, child care quality, schools, and other factors). We should also note that the random assignment evaluations referred to by Kaestner that showed harmful effects on adolescents explicitly determined that those effects did not occur because those reforms moved women into employment; it was for some other reason, as yet not understood. Our methodology has an advantage over experimental methods because it involves an explicit study of a mechanism and thus can reveal the reasons that policies actually have their effects; experiments cannot do this. [1]: /lookup/doi/10.1126/science.1076921 [2]: #ref-1 [3]: #ref-2 [4]: #xref-ref-1-1 "View reference 1. in text" [5]: {openurl}?query=rft.jtitle%253DJ.%2BEcon.%2BLit.%26rft.volume%253DXL%26rft.spage%253D1105%26rft_id%253Dinfo%253Adoi%252F10.1257%252F002205102762203576%26rft.genre%253Darticle%26rft_val_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Ajournal%26ctx_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ver%253DZ39.88-2004%26url_ctx_fmt%253Dinfo%253Aofi%252Ffmt%253Akev%253Amtx%253Actx [6]: /lookup/external-ref?access_num=10.1257/002205102762203576&link_type=DOI [7]: #xref-ref-2-1 "View reference 2. in text"