IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/cysrev/v55y2015icp210-221.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Fragile families in the American welfare state

Author

Listed:
  • 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
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740915001863
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.childyouth.2015.05.018?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marcia Carlson & Sara Mclanahan & Paula England, 2004. "Union formation in fragile families," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(2), pages 237-261, May.
    2. Moffitt, Robert, 1992. "Incentive Effects of the U.S. Welfare System: A Review," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 30(1), pages 1-61, March.
    3. Reichman, Nancy E. & Teitler, Julien O. & Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S., 2001. "Fragile Families: sample and design," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 303-326.
    4. Irwin Garfinkel & Lee Rainwater & Timothy M. Smeeding, 2006. "A re-examination of welfare states and inequality in rich nations: How in-kind transfers and indirect taxes change the story," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 897-919.
    5. Amanda Geller & Irwin Garfinkel & Carey E. Cooper & Ronald B. Mincy, 2009. "Parental Incarceration and Child Well‐Being: Implications for Urban Families," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1186-1202, December.
    6. Garfinkel, Irwin & Rainwater, Lee & Smeeding, Timothy, 2010. "Wealth and Welfare States: Is America a Laggard or Leader?," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199579310.
    7. Heinz Stapf-Finé & Martin Rein, 2001. "Income Packaging and Economic Well-Being at the Income Last Stage of the Working Career," LIS Working papers 270, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    8. Robert A. Moffitt, 1996. "The effect of employment and training programs on entry and exit from the welfare caseload," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 15(1), pages 32-50.
    9. Adema, Willem, 2012. "Setting the scene: The mix of family policy objectives and packages across the OECD," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 487-498.
    10. Bruce D. Meyer & Wallace K. C. Mok & James X. Sullivan, 2009. "The Under-Reporting of Transfers in Household Surveys: Its Nature and Consequences," Working Papers 0903, Harris School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.
    11. Hacker, Jacob S., 2004. "Review Article: Dismantling the Health Care State? Political Institutions, Public Policies and the Comparative Politics of Health Reform," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 34(4), pages 693-724, October.
    12. Lee Rainwater & Timothy Smeeding, 1997. "Demography or Income Packaging: What Explains the Income Distribution of The Netherlands?," LIS Working papers 169, LIS Cross-National Data Center in Luxembourg.
    13. Peter Lindert, 2004. "Social Spending and Economic Growth," Challenge, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(4), pages 6-16.
    14. Chatterji, P. & Brooks-Gunn, J., 2004. "WIC participation, breastfeeding practices, and well-child care among unmarried, low-income mothers," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 94(8), pages 1324-1327.
    15. Joseph A. Pechman, 1970. "The Distributional Effects of Public Higher Education in California: A Review Article," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 5(3), pages 361-370.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    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.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Fortin, Bernard, 1997. "Dépendance à l’égard de l’aide sociale et réforme de la sécurité du revenu," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 73(4), pages 557-573, décembre.
    2. Ronald Mincy & Jennifer Hill & Marilyn Sinkewicz, 2009. "Marriage: Cause or mere indicator of future earnings growth?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 417-439.
    3. Nancy E. Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan, 2013. "Effects of Mental Health on Couple Relationship Status," Working Papers 1473, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    4. L. M. Mead, "undated". "Welfare policy: The administrative frontier," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1093-96, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    5. Marcia J. Carlson & Robin S. Högnäs, 2010. "Coparenting in Fragile Families," Working Papers 1188, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    6. Marianne Bitler & Hilary Hoynes, 2016. "The More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same? The Safety Net and Poverty in the Great Recession," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(S1), pages 403-444.
    7. Peter H. Lindert, 2017. "The Rise and Future of Progressive Redistribution," Commitment to Equity (CEQ) Working Paper Series 73, Tulane University, Department of Economics.
    8. Nancy Reichman & Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan, 2015. "Effects of maternal depression on couple relationship status," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 13(4), pages 929-973, December.
    9. repec:pri:crcwel:wp07-07-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    10. Bzostek, Sharon H. & Beck, Audrey N., 2011. "Familial instability and young children's physical health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 282-292, July.
    11. Huang, Chien-Chung & Postmus, Judy L. & Vikse, Juliann H. & Wang, Lih-Rong, 2013. "Economic abuse, physical violence, and union formation," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 35(5), pages 780-786.
    12. Chan, Kwok Ho & Fung, Ka Wai Terence, 2013. "The Effect of Social Fathers on the Cognitive Skills of Out-of-Wedlock Children," MPRA Paper 52875, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Robert Moffitt, 2002. "The role of randomized field trials in social science research: a perspective from evaluations of reforms of social welfare programs," CeMMAP working papers 23/02, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    14. Sean Higgins & Nora Lustig & Whitney Ruble & Timothy M. Smeeding, 2016. "Comparing the Incidence of Taxes and Social Spending in Brazil and the United States," Review of Income and Wealth, International Association for Research in Income and Wealth, vol. 62(S1), pages 22-46, August.
    15. repec:pri:crcwel:wp06-28-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    16. Chung, Yiyoon, 2011. "Children's exposure to paternal imprisonment: Incidence, evolution, and correlates among young nonmarital children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 33(5), pages 575-587, May.
    17. repec:pri:crcwel:wp06-09-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    18. repec:pri:crcwel:wp09-10-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Amanda Geller & Irwin Garfinkel & Bruce Western, 2011. "Paternal Incarceration and Support for Children in Fragile Families," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(1), pages 25-47, February.
    20. Sara McLanahan, 2009. "Fragile Families and the Reproduction of Poverty," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 621(1), pages 111-131, January.
    21. Gerald Eric Daniels & Venoo Kakar & Anoshua Chaudhuri, 2017. "Racial Differences in Transitions to Marriage for Unmarried Mothers," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 38(3), pages 370-389, September.
    22. Hope Corman & Kelly Noonan & Nancy Reichman & Ofira Schwartz-Soicher, 2011. "Life Shocks and Crime: A Test of the “Turning Point” Hypothesis," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(3), pages 1177-1202, August.
    23. Audrey N. Beck & Carey E. Cooper & Sara S. McLanahan & Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, 2009. "Relationship Transitions and Maternal Parenting," Working Papers 1131, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    24. Garfinkel, Irwin & McLanahan, Sara S. & Tienda, Marta & Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 2001. "Fragile families and welfare reform: An introduction," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 23(4-5), pages 277-301.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:55:y:2015:i:c:p:210-221. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/childyouth .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.