IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/boc/bocoec/567.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Can Work Alter Welfare Recipients' Beliefs about How They Will Fare in the Labor Market?

Author

Listed:
  • Peter Gottschalk

    (Boston College)

  • Sheldon Danziger

    (University of Michigan)

Abstract

Some public policies aimed at integrating welfare recipients into the world of work are predicated on the premise that getting welfare recipients to work will change their beliefs about how they will be treated in the labor market. This paper explores the rationale for these policies and concludes that a plausible argument can be made on the basis of concepts developed by social psychologists and by economists. The prediction that work affects beliefs is tested using a unique data set that allows us to estimate the causal effect. We find that exogenous increases in work induced by an experimental tax credit led to the predicted changes in self-efficacy.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter Gottschalk & Sheldon Danziger, 2003. "Can Work Alter Welfare Recipients' Beliefs about How They Will Fare in the Labor Market?," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 567, Boston College Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:567
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp567.pdf
    File Function: main text
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mark Evan Edwards & Robert Plotnick & Marieka Klawitter, 2001. "Do Attitudes and Personality Characteristics Affect Socioeconomic Outcomes? The Case of Welfare Use by Young Women," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 82(4), pages 817-843, December.
    2. Paul J. Andrisani, 1977. "Internal-External Attitudes, Personal Initiative, and the Labor Market Experience of Black and White Men," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 12(3), pages 308-328.
    3. Roland Bénabou & Jean Tirole, 2005. "Self-Confidence and Personal Motivation," International Economic Association Series, in: Bina Agarwal & Alessandro Vercelli (ed.), Psychology, Rationality and Economic Behaviour, chapter 2, pages 19-57, Palgrave Macmillan.
    4. Paul J. Andrisani, 1981. "Internal-External Attitudes, Sense of Efficacy, and Labor Market Experience: A Reply to Duncan and Morgan," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 16(4), pages 658-666.
    5. Greg J. Duncan & James N. Morgan, 1981. "Sense of Efficacy and Subsequent Change in Earnings-A Replication," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 16(4), pages 649-657.
    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. Rémi Piatek & Pia Pinger, 2016. "Maintaining (Locus of) Control? Data Combination for the Identification and Inference of Factor Structure Models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(4), pages 734-755, June.
    2. Peter Gottschalk, 2005. "Can work alter welfare recipients' beliefs?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(3), pages 485-498.
    3. Semykina, Anastasia & Linz, Susan J., 2007. "Gender differences in personality and earnings: Evidence from Russia," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 28(3), pages 387-410, June.
    4. Linz, Susan J. & Semykina, Anastasia, 2008. "Attitudes and performance: An analysis of Russian workers," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 694-717, April.
    5. McGee, Andrew & McGee, Peter, 2016. "Search, effort, and locus of control," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 126(PA), pages 89-101.
    6. de Araujo, Pedro & Lagos, Stephen, 2013. "Self-esteem, education, and wages revisited," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 120-132.
    7. Eva M. Berger & Luke Haywood, 2016. "Locus of Control and Mothers’ Return to Employment," Journal of Human Capital, University of Chicago Press, vol. 10(4), pages 442-481.
    8. Deborah Cobb-Clark, 2015. "Locus of control and the labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Economics, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 4(1), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Duncan, Greg J. & Morgan, James N., 1983. "An overview of family economic mobility," Agricultural Outlook Forum Archive 1923 - 1997 326120, United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Outlook Forum.
    10. Robert Girtz, 2015. "The Effects of Personality Traits on Wages: A Quantile Regression Approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 35(4), pages 2174-2183.
    11. Deborah A. Cobb‐Clark & Stefanie Schurer, 2013. "Two Economists' Musings on the Stability of Locus of Control," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 358-400, August.
    12. Marco Caliendo & Deborah A. Cobb-Clark & Arne Uhlendorff, 2015. "Locus of Control and Job Search Strategies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 88-103, March.
    13. Elkins, Rosemary & Schurer, Stefanie, 2018. "Exploring the Role of Fathers in Non-Cognitive Skill Development over the Lifecourse," IZA Discussion Papers 11451, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    14. Rosemary Elkins & Stefanie Schurer, 2020. "Exploring the role of parental engagement in non-cognitive skill development over the lifecourse," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 33(3), pages 957-1004, July.
    15. Linda Datcher-Loury & Glenn Loury, 1986. "The Effects of Attitudes and Aspirations on the Labor Supply of Young Men," NBER Chapters, in: The Black Youth Employment Crisis, pages 377-401, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    16. András István Kun & Marietta Kiss & Anna Kapitány, 2015. "The Effect Of Personality On Academic Performance: Evidence From Two University Majors," Business Education and Accreditation, The Institute for Business and Finance Research, vol. 7(1), pages 13-24.
    17. Cobb-Clark, Deborah & Schurer, Stefanie, 2011. "Two economists’ musings on the stability of locus of control," Working Paper Series 1619, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.
    18. R. Plotnick & M. Klawitter & M. Edwards, "undated". "Do Attitudes and Personality Characteristics Affect Socioeconomic Outcomes? The Case of Welfare Use by Young Women," Institute for Research on Poverty Discussion Papers 1161-98, University of Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty.
    19. Andrew D. McGee, 2015. "How the Perception of Control Influences Unemployed Job Search," ILR Review, Cornell University, ILR School, vol. 68(1), pages 184-211, January.
    20. Starkey, James L., 1996. "Race differences in the effect of unemployment on marital instability: A socioeconomic analysis," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 25(6), pages 683-720.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Endogenous tastes; wage subsidies;

    JEL classification:

    • J38 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Public Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:boc:bocoec:567. 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: Christopher F Baum (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/debocus.html .

    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.