Welfare and the Well-Being of Children

ISBN-13: 9783718656240 / Angielski / Miękka / 2004 / 184 str.

Janet Currie;Currie

Opis

An analysis of eight of the largest US welfare programmes affecting children. These programmes include Aid to Families with Dependent Children, the Food Stamp Program. Medicaid, housing assistance, supplemental feeding programmes such as WIC and School Lunch, Head Start and the Earned Income Tax Credit. Despite the fact that these programmes were designed to serve children, most discussion of welfare reforms focuses on the incentives that the welfare system creates for parents. This analysis represents an evaluation of the evidence regarding the effects of welfare programmes on the children themselves. Programmes such as Medicaid and Head Start have a larger effect on measures of child well-being than cash transfer programs such as AFDC. This suggests an economic rationale for the recent trend towards providing a larger proportion of assistance in-kind.

Spis treści

Introduction Part 1: An Overview of Methods, Measures, and Programs 1. Methods for Evaluating Welfare Programs A: Experiments B: Instrumental Variables, “Natural Experiments”, and Selection Corrections C: Fixed Effects and Random Effects Models D: Summary 2. Measures of Child Well-Being 1A. Measures of Health Status B: Test Scores and Scholastic Achievement C: Long-Run Measures of Social Competence 3D: Other Measures 3. The Programs A: An Overview of Spending on Programs that Benefit Children B: Trends in Caseloads and Expenditures C: Do Welfare Programs Raise Children Out of Poverty? D: Spending on Children Compared to Spending on the Elderly E: Summary Part 2: Evaluation of Individual Programs 4. AFDC A: Effects of AFDC on Young Children B: Intergenerational Transmission of Poverty and Welfare Dependency C: AFDC Effects on Teen Pregnancy and Child Bearing D: Summary 5. Medicaid A: Insurance Coverage and the Utilization of Care B: The Link Between Utilization of Medical Care and Child Health C: Summary 6. The Food Stamp Program A: Effects on Nutrition B: Effects on Food Expenditures C: Summary 7. WIC and School Nutrition Programs A: WIC B: School Nutrition Programs C: Other Child Nutrition Programs D: Summary 8. Head Start A: Short-Term Effects of Head Start B: Longer-Term Effects of Head Start C: Discussion D: Summary 9. Housing Assistance A: Adequate Housing for All? B: The Effects of Neighborhoods C: The Role of Housing Assistance Programs: The Construction of Public Housing Vs. Vouchers D: Summary 10. The Earned Income Tax Credit A: Parallels Between the EITC and the NIT B: Effects of the NIT C: Summary

O autorze

Janet M. Currie University of California, Los Angeles, USA, Finis Welch Texas A&M University, Texas, USA