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Fragile families in the American welfare state

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  • Garfinkel, Irwin
  • Zilanawala, Afshin

Abstract

The proportion of children born out of wedlock is now over 40%. At birth, about half of these parents are co-habiting. This paper examines data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N=4271) to describe for the first time the role of welfare state benefits in the economic lives of married, cohabiting, and single parent families with young children. Surprisingly, total welfare state benefits received by the three family types are relatively similar. Nearly half of the full incomes of fragile families come from welfare state transfers. For single parent families the proportion is slightly more than two thirds. Though aggregate welfare state transfers are approximately equal across family type and thus change very little as marital status changes, these transfers and the taxes required to finance them cushion family status changes and substantially narrow the gap in full income between married and fragile families.

Suggested Citation

  • Garfinkel, Irwin & Zilanawala, Afshin, 2015. "Fragile families in the American welfare state," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 210-221.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:55:y:2015:i:c:p:210-221
    DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.05.018
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. David Rothwell & Annie McEwen, 2018. "Child Poverty and Family Structure during the Recession in English-Speaking Liberal Welfare States," LIS Working papers 665, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    2. Cifuentes, Myriam Patricia & Doogan, Nathan J. & Fernandez, Soledad A. & Seiber, Eric E., 2016. "Factors shaping Americans’ objective well-being: A systems science approach with network analysis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 1018-1039.
    3. Christopher Wimer & Liana Fox & Irwin Garfinkel & Neeraj Kaushal & JaeHyun Nam & Jane Waldfogel, 2021. "Trends in the Economic Wellbeing of Unmarried-Parent Families with Children: New Estimates Using an Improved Measure of Poverty," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 40(6), pages 1253-1276, December.

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