The Effect of Welfare on Child Outcomes: What We Know and What We Need to Know

Janet Currie

JCPR Working Papers from Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research

Abstract: This survey discusses 8 large federal welfare programs that affect children. The available evidence is incomplete but suggests a consistent story: Programs that target services directly to children have the largest measured effects, while it is more difficult to detect possibly positive effects of unrestricted cash transfers. There are also striking and largely unexplained differences between demographic groups in the effects of some programs. The survey concludes with five questions for future research: 1) Do welfare programs have long-term effects on children?; 2) Why do programs appear to have differential effects on different demographic groups?; 3) How do programs interact; 4) How exactly do successful programs work? and 5) Are programs cost effective? These questions indicate that though we know much more than we did even 5 years ago about the effects of welfare on children, there is still much work to be done if we are to make informed decisions about public policy.

Date: 1998-03-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
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:wop:jopovw:26

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in JCPR Working Papers from Northwestern University/University of Chicago Joint Center for Poverty Research Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Thomas Krichel ().