Transitions in Welfare Participation and Female Headship

John Fitzgerald () and David Ribar

No 895, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This study uses data from the 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1996 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation to examine how welfare policies and local economic conditions contribute to women's transitions into and out of female headship and into and out of welfare participation. It also examines whether welfare participation is directly associated with longer spells of headship. The study employs a simultaneous hazards approach that accounts for unobserved heterogeneity in all of its transition models and for the endogeneity of welfare participation in its headship model. The estimation results indicate that welfare participation significantly reduces the chances of leaving female headship. The estimates also reveal that more generous welfare benefits contribute indirectly to headship by increasing the chances that mothers will enter welfare. More generous Earned Income Tax Credit benefits are associated with longer spells of headship, non-headship, welfare participation and nonparticipation. Other measures of welfare policies, including indicators for the adoption of welfare waivers and the implementation of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families programs, are generally not significantly associated with headship or welfare receipt. Better economic opportunities are estimated to increase headship but reduce welfare participation among unmarried mothers.

Keywords: hazard models; female headship; welfare participation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I3 J1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39 pages
Date: 2003-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-edu and nep-lab
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Published - published in: Population Research and Policy Review, 2004, 23 (5-6), 641-670

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp895.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Transitions in Welfare Participation and Female Headship (2004)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp895

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().