IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ucp/jpolec/doi10.1086-717893.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Welfare Reform and the Intergenerational Transmission of Dependence

Author

Listed:
  • Robert Paul Hartley
  • Carlos Lamarche
  • James P. Ziliak

Abstract

We investigate the effect of welfare reform on intergenerational welfare participation, using mother-daughter pairs in the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. We find that a mother’s Aid to Families with Dependent Children/Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (AFDC/TANF) participation increased her daughter’s odds of adult participation in that program by roughly 25 percentage points or more, but that welfare reform attenuated this transmission by at least 50%. However, there is no diminution of transmission after welfare reform when we consider the wider safety net or other outcomes. Daughters who grew up with mothers on AFDC/TANF were no better off after reform, with substitution toward other welfare programs over generations.

Suggested Citation

  • Robert Paul Hartley & Carlos Lamarche & James P. Ziliak, 2022. "Welfare Reform and the Intergenerational Transmission of Dependence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 130(3), pages 523-565.
    • Handle: RePEc:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/717893
    DOI: 10.1086/717893
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/717893
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1086/717893
    Download Restriction: Access to the online full text or PDF requires a subscription.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1086/717893?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 look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2016. "Heterogeneous Income Profiles and Lifecycle Bias in Intergenerational Mobility Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 239-268.
    2. John V. Pepper, 2000. "The Intergenerational Transmission Of Welfare Receipt: A Nonparametric Bounds Analysis," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(3), pages 472-488, August.
    3. Lucie Schmidt & Purvi Sevak, 2004. "AFDC, SSI, and Welfare Reform Aggressiveness: Caseload Reductions versus Caseload Shifting," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 39(3).
    4. Gary Solon & Steven J. Haider & Jeffrey M. Wooldridge, 2015. "What Are We Weighting For?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 50(2), pages 301-316.
    5. Black, Sandra E. & Devereux, Paul J., 2011. "Recent Developments in Intergenerational Mobility," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 16, pages 1487-1541, Elsevier.
    6. Freeman, Richard B, 1984. "Longitudinal Analyses of the Effects of Trade Unions," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 2(1), pages 1-26, January.
    7. Corak,Miles (ed.), 2004. "Generational Income Mobility in North America and Europe," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521827607, October.
    8. Sara McLanahan, 1988. "Family structure and dependency: Early transitions to female household headship," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 25(1), pages 1-16, February.
    9. Jeffrey Grogger, 2003. "The Effects of Time Limits, the EITC, and Other Policy Changes on Welfare Use, Work, and Income among Female-Headed Families," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(2), pages 394-408, May.
    10. Rebecca M. Blank, 2001. "What Causes Public Assistance Caseloads to Grow?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 36(1), pages 85-118.
    11. Solon, Gary, 1999. "Intergenerational mobility in the labor market," Handbook of Labor Economics, in: O. Ashenfelter & D. Card (ed.), Handbook of Labor Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 29, pages 1761-1800, Elsevier.
    12. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2005. "Fortunate Sons: New Estimates of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States Using Social Security Earnings Data," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(2), pages 235-255, May.
    13. Steven Haider & Gary Solon, 2006. "Life-Cycle Variation in the Association between Current and Lifetime Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1308-1320, September.
    14. Hoynes, Hilary Williamson & Schanzenbach, Diane Whitmore, 2012. "Work incentives and the Food Stamp Program," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(1), pages 151-162.
    15. Molinari, Francesca, 2008. "Partial identification of probability distributions with misclassified data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 144(1), pages 81-117, May.
    16. John Fitzgerald & Peter Gottschalk & Robert Moffitt, 1998. "An Analysis of Sample Attrition in Panel Data: The Michigan Panel Study of Income Dynamics," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 33(2), pages 251-299.
    17. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2004. "Migration, the Life Cycle, and State Benefits: How Low Is the Bottom?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 112(5), pages 1091-1130, October.
    18. Robert A. Moffitt, 2016. "Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 2," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff-3.
    19. Brent Kreider & John V. Pepper & Craig Gundersen & Dean Jolliffe, 2012. "Identifying the Effects of SNAP (Food Stamps) on Child Health Outcomes When Participation Is Endogenous and Misreported," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 107(499), pages 958-975, September.
    20. Donohue, John J, III & Heckman, James, 1991. "Continuous versus Episodic Change: The Impact of Civil Rights Policy on the Economic Status of Blacks," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 1603-1643, December.
    21. Gary Solon & Mary Corcoran & Roger Gordon & Deborah Laren, 1988. "Sibling and Intergenerational Correlations in Welfare Program Participation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 23(3), pages 388-396.
    22. Gottschalk, Peter & Moffitt, Robert A, 1994. "Welfare Dependence: Concepts, Measures, and Trends," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(2), pages 38-42, May.
    23. Heckman, James J, 1978. "Dummy Endogenous Variables in a Simultaneous Equation System," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(4), pages 931-959, July.
    24. Robert A. Moffitt, 2016. "Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume 1," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff14-1.
    25. James P. Ziliak, 2007. "Making Work Pay: Changes in Effective Tax Rates and Guarantees in U.S. Transfer Programs, 1983–2002," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 42(3).
    26. Griliches, Zvi & Hausman, Jerry A., 1986. "Errors in variables in panel data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 93-118, February.
    27. Becker, Gary S & Tomes, Nigel, 1979. "An Equilibrium Theory of the Distribution of Income and Intergenerational Mobility," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 87(6), pages 1153-1189, December.
    28. Bruce Meyer & Nikolas Mittag, 2013. "Misclassification In Binary Choice Models," Working Papers 13-27, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    29. James P. Ziliak & David N. Figlio & Elizabeth E. Davis & Laura S. Connolly, 2000. "Accounting for the Decline in AFDC Caseloads: Welfare Reform or the Economy?," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 35(3), pages 570-586.
    30. Kennan, John & Walker, James R., 2010. "Wages, welfare benefits and migration," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 156(1), pages 229-238, May.
    31. Robert A. Moffitt & Peter Gottschalk, 2002. "Trends in the Transitory Variance of Earnings in the United States," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(478), pages 68-73, March.
    32. Jeffrey Grogger & Steven J. Haider & Jacob Klerman, 2003. "Why Did the Welfare Rolls Fall During the 1990's? The Importance of Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 288-292, May.
    33. repec:wly:soecon:v:82:4:y:2016:p:1106-1122 is not listed on IDEAS
    34. Bollinger, Christopher R., 1996. "Bounding mean regressions when a binary regressor is mismeasured," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 73(2), pages 387-399, August.
    35. Marla Cancian & Deborah Reed, "undated". "Family Structure, Childbearing, and Parental Employment: Implications for the Level and Trend in Poverty," Mathematica Policy Research Reports c54934d6dfb5438485437cf48, Mathematica Policy Research.
    36. Hanming Fang & Michael P. Keane, 2004. "Assessing the Impact of Welfare Reform on Single Mothers," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 35(1), pages 1-116.
    37. Grawe, Nathan D., 2006. "Lifecycle bias in estimates of intergenerational earnings persistence," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 13(5), pages 551-570, October.
    38. Antel, John J, 1992. "The Intergenerational Transfer of Welfare Dependency: Some Statistical Evidence," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 74(3), pages 467-473, August.
    39. Duncan, Greg J. & Yeung, Wei-Jun J., 1995. "Extent and consequences of welfare dependence among America's children," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 157-182.
    40. Peter Ganong & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2018. "The Decline, Rebound, and Further Rise in SNAP Enrollment: Disentangling Business Cycle Fluctuations and Policy Changes," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 10(4), pages 153-176, November.
    41. Moffitt, Robert A. (ed.), 2016. "Economics of Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States, Volume I," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, number 9780226370477.
    42. Jeffrey Grogger & Steven J. Haider & Jacob Klerman, 2003. "Why Did the Welfare Rolls Fall During the 1990's? The Importance of Entry," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(2), pages 288-292, May.
    43. George J. Borjas & Glenn T. Sueyoshi, 1997. "Ethnicity and the Intergenerational Transmission of Welfare Dependency," NBER Working Papers 6175, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    44. Smith, James P & Welch, Finis R, 1989. "Black Economic Progress after Myrdal," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 27(2), pages 519-564, June.
    45. Mary Corcoran & Roger Gordon & Deborah Laren & Gary Solon, 1992. "The Association between Men's Economic Status and Their Family and Community Origins," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 27(4), pages 575-601.
    46. Fitzgerald John M, 2011. "Attrition in Models of Intergenerational Links Using the PSID with Extensions to Health and to Sibling Models," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(3), pages 1-63, September.
    47. Hausman, J. A. & Abrevaya, Jason & Scott-Morton, F. M., 1998. "Misclassification of the dependent variable in a discrete-response setting," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(2), pages 239-269, September.
    48. Robert A. Moffitt, 2003. "Means-Tested Transfer Programs in the United States," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number moff03-1.
    49. repec:mpr:mprres:6419 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Anna Christina D'Addio, 2007. "Intergenerational Transmission of Disadvantage: Mobility or Immobility Across Generations?," OECD Social, Employment and Migration Working Papers 52, OECD Publishing.
    2. Markus Jäntti & Stephen P. Jenkins, 2013. "Income Mobility," SOEPpapers on Multidisciplinary Panel Data Research 607, DIW Berlin, The German Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP).
    3. Melanie Guldi & Lucie Schmidt, 2017. "Taxes, Transfers, and Women’s Labor Supply in the United States," Working Papers 2017-01, University of Central Florida, Department of Economics.
    4. Doan, Quang Hung & Nguyen, Ngoc Anh, 2016. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in Vietnam," MPRA Paper 70603, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Martin Nybom & Jan Stuhler, 2016. "Heterogeneous Income Profiles and Lifecycle Bias in Intergenerational Mobility Estimation," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 51(1), pages 239-268.
    6. Moshe Justman & Anna Krush, 2013. "Less Equal and Less Mobile: Evidence of a Decline in Intergenerational Income Mobility in the United States," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2013n43, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    7. Bertha Rohenkohl, 2019. "Intergenerational Income Mobility in the UK:New evidence using the BHPS and Understanding Society," Working Papers 2019017, The University of Sheffield, Department of Economics.
    8. Céline Lecavelier des Etangs-Levallois, 2017. "Overview of intergenerational earnings mobility in Germany," THEMA Working Papers 2017-11, THEMA (THéorie Economique, Modélisation et Applications), Université de Cergy-Pontoise.
    9. Paul Hufe & Andreas Peichl & Daniel Weishaar, 2018. "Intergenerationelle Einkommensmobilität: Schlusslicht Deutschland?," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(20), pages 20-28, October.
    10. Moshe Justman & Anna Krush, 2013. "Less Equal And Less Mobile: Evidence Of A Decline In Intergenerational Income Mobility In The United Statesless Equal And Less Mobile: Evidence Of A Decline In Intergenerational Income Mobility In The," Working Papers 1315, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    11. Schnitzlein Daniel, 2009. "Struktur und Ausmaß der intergenerationalen Einkommensmobilität in Deutschland / Structure and Extent of Intergenerational Income Mobility in Germany," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 229(4), pages 450-466, August.
    12. Cobb-Clark, Deborah A. & Dahmann, Sarah C. & Salamanca, Nicolás & Zhu, Anna, 2022. "Intergenerational disadvantage: Learning about equal opportunity from social assistance receipt," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 79(C).
    13. Corak, Miles & Curtis, Lori & Phipps, Shelley, 2010. "Economic Mobility, Family Background, and the Well-Being of Children in the United States and Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 4814, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Galassi, Gabriela & Koll, David & Mayr, Lukas, 2019. "The Intergenerational Correlation of Employment: Is There a Role for Work Culture?," IZA Discussion Papers 12595, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    15. Guido Neidhöfer, 2019. "Intergenerational mobility and the rise and fall of inequality: Lessons from Latin America," The Journal of Economic Inequality, Springer;Society for the Study of Economic Inequality, vol. 17(4), pages 499-520, December.
    16. Piraino, Patrizio, 2015. "Intergenerational Earnings Mobility and Equality of Opportunity in South Africa," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 67(C), pages 396-405.
    17. Gabriela Galassi & David Koll & Lukas Mayr, 2019. "The Intergenerational Correlation of Employment: Is There a Role for Work Culture?," Staff Working Papers 19-33, Bank of Canada.
    18. Arnaud Lefranc, 2018. "Intergenerational earnings persistence and economic inequality in the long-run : Evidence from French cohorts, 1931-1975," Post-Print hal-02528217, HAL.
    19. Bhashkar Mazumder, 2018. "Intergenerational Mobility in the United States: What We Have Learned from the PSID," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 680(1), pages 213-234, November.
    20. Oscar A. Mitnik, 2007. "Intergenerational transmission of welfare dependency: The effects of length of exposure," Working Papers 0715, University of Miami, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • I38 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare, Well-Being, and Poverty - - - Government Programs; Provision and Effects of Welfare Programs
    • J62 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Mobility, Unemployment, Vacancies, and Immigrant Workers - - - Job, Occupational and Intergenerational Mobility; Promotion
    • H53 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Government Expenditures and Welfare Programs

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:ucp:jpolec:doi:10.1086/717893. 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: Journals Division (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/JPE .

    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.