Search Results

Author: Corman, Hope
Resulting in 5 citations.
1. Dave, Dhaval
Corman, Hope
Kalil, Ariel
Schwartz-Soicher, Ofira
Reichman, Nancy
Effects of Maternal Work Incentives on Adolescent Behaviors
Presented: Austin TX, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2019
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Extracurricular Activities/Sports; Geocoded Data; Maternal Employment; Monitoring the Future (MTF); State-Level Data/Policy; Substance Use; Volunteer Work; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Robert Moffitt’s 2014 PAA address highlighted the need for studies of effects on children of the substantial (and un-reversed) reduction of the cash assistance safety net that took place in the 1990s. This study investigates the effects of welfare reform, which dramatically limited cash assistance for low-income families, on adolescent behaviors that are important for socioeconomic trajectories and represent observable outcomes of the reforms for the next generation as they transition to adulthood. Using two nationally-representative datasets, we exploit differences in welfare reform implementation across states and over time in a difference-in-differences framework to identify causal effects of welfare reform on a range of social behaviors (volunteering, clubs/teams/activities; delinquency, substance use). We investigate differential effects by gender and age and explore maternal employment and supervision as potential mediators. Preliminary results suggest that welfare reform had largely unfavorable effects on adolescent behaviors and do not support longstanding culture of poverty arguments.
Bibliography Citation
Dave, Dhaval, Hope Corman, Ariel Kalil, Ofira Schwartz-Soicher and Nancy Reichman. "Effects of Maternal Work Incentives on Adolescent Behaviors." Presented: Austin TX, Population Association of America Annual Meeting, April 2019.
2. Dave, Dhaval
Corman, Hope
Kalil, Ariel
Schwartz-Soicher, Ofira
Reichman, Nancy
Effects of Maternal Work Incentives on Adolescent Social Behaviors
NBER Working Paper No. 25527, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w25527
Cohort(s): NLSY79, NLSY79 Young Adult
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Adolescent Behavior; Delinquency/Gang Activity; Geocoded Data; Intergenerational Patterns/Transmission; Maternal Employment; State-Level Data/Policy; Substance Use; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF); Welfare

This study exploits variations in the timing of welfare reform implementation in the U.S. in the 1990s to identify plausibly causal effects of welfare reform on a range of social behaviors of the next generation as they transition to adulthood. We focus on behaviors that are important for socioeconomic and health trajectories, estimate effects by gender, and explore potentially mediating factors. Welfare reform had no favorable effects on any of the youth behaviors examined and led to decreased volunteering among girls, increases in skipping school, damaging property, and fighting among boys, and increases in smoking and drug use among both boys and girls, with larger effects for boys (e.g., -6% for boys compared to 4% for girls for any substance use). Maternal employment, supervision, and child's employment explain little of the effects. Overall, the intergenerational effects of welfare reform on adolescent behaviors were unfavorable, particularly for boys, and do not support longstanding arguments that limiting cash assistance leads to responsible behavior in the next generation. As such, the favorable effects of welfare reform for women may have come at a cost to the next generation, particularly to boys who have been falling behind girls in high school completion for decades.
Bibliography Citation
Dave, Dhaval, Hope Corman, Ariel Kalil, Ofira Schwartz-Soicher and Nancy Reichman. "Effects of Maternal Work Incentives on Adolescent Social Behaviors." NBER Working Paper No. 25527, National Bureau of Economic Research, February 2019.
3. Kaestner, Robert
Corman, Hope
The Impact of Child Health and Family Inputs on Child Cognitive Development
NBER Working Paper No. 5257, National Bureau Economic Research, September 1995.
Also: http://www.nber.org/papers/w5257
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Body Mass Index (BMI); Child Health; Cognitive Development; Family Characteristics; Illnesses; Labor Force Participation; Modeling, Fixed Effects; Mothers, Education; Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Math); Peabody Individual Achievement Test (PIAT- Reading)

In this paper we extensively analyze the impact of child health and other family characteristics on the cognitive achievement of children between the ages of five and nine. We estimate both cross sectional and fixed effects models using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Several of our results challenge the conclusions found in the existing literature. First, we find only a weak relationship between several measures of child health and child cognitive development. Second, we find that additional maternal schooling does not improve child cognitive achievement. Finally, our estimates of the effect of mother's labor force participation suggest that working has a positive impact on child cognitive achievement.
Bibliography Citation
Kaestner, Robert and Hope Corman. "The Impact of Child Health and Family Inputs on Child Cognitive Development." NBER Working Paper No. 5257, National Bureau Economic Research, September 1995.
4. Kalil, Ariel
Corman, Hope
Dave, Dhaval
Schwartz-Soicher, Ofira
Reichman, Nancy
Welfare Reform and the Quality of Young Children's Home Environments
NBER Working Paper No. 30407, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2022.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w30407
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Development; Children, Home Environment; Geocoded Data; Home Observation for Measurement of Environment (HOME); Human Capital; State-Level Data/Policy; Welfare

This study investigates effects of welfare reform in the U.S., a major policy shift that increased employment of low-income mothers and reliance on their own earnings instead of cash assistance through the welfare system, on the quality of the home environments they provide for their preschool-age children. Using empirical methods designed to identify plausibly causal effects, we estimate effects of welfare reform on validated survey and observational measures of maternal behaviors that support children's cognitive skills and emotional adjustment and material goods that parents purchase to stimulate their children's skill development. The results suggest that welfare reform did not affect the amount of time and material resources mothers devoted to cognitively stimulating activities with their young children but was significantly associated with approximately 0.3-0.4 standard deviation lower scores on provision of emotional support, with stronger effects for mothers with low human capital. The findings provide evidence that maternal work incentives as implemented by welfare reform came at a cost to children in the form of lower quality parenting and underscore the importance of considering quality, and not just quantity, in assessing the effects of maternal work incentive policies on parenting and children's home environments.
Bibliography Citation
Kalil, Ariel, Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave, Ofira Schwartz-Soicher and Nancy Reichman. "Welfare Reform and the Quality of Young Children's Home Environments." NBER Working Paper No. 30407, National Bureau of Economic Research, August 2022.
5. Reichman, Nancy
Corman, Hope
Dave, Dhaval
Kalil, Ariel
Schwartz-Soicher, Ofira
Effects of Welfare Reform on Parenting
NBER Working Paper No. 28077, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2020.
Also: https://www.nber.org/papers/w28077
Cohort(s): Children of the NLSY79, NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Geocoded Data; Parent Supervision/Monitoring; Parent-Child Interaction; Parent-Child Relationship/Closeness; State-Level Data/Policy; Welfare

This study investigated the effects of welfare reform in the 1990s, which represented a major policy shift that substantially and permanently retracted cash assistance to poor mothers in the U.S., on parenting. Using data on women from the 1979 cohort of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth linked with information on their 10- to 14-year-old children from the Child Self-Administered and Self-Report surveys, we exploited variation in the implementation of welfare reform across states, over time, and across treatment and comparison groups to estimate the effects of welfare reform on parent-child activities and closeness of the mother-child relationship. We found that welfare reform had adverse effects on engagement in parent-child activities, children feeling close to their mothers, and mothers knowing their children's whereabouts, with the effects generally concentrated among boys. These findings have implications for children's development and contribute to a virtually non-existent literature on the effects of welfare reform on parenting and the small but growing economic literature on parenting. We found no evidence that the effects of welfare reform on parenting operated through the mother working more than full time, having multiple jobs, working in a service job, or having a non-standard work schedule.
Bibliography Citation
Reichman, Nancy, Hope Corman, Dhaval Dave, Ariel Kalil and Ofira Schwartz-Soicher. "Effects of Welfare Reform on Parenting." NBER Working Paper No. 28077, National Bureau of Economic Research, November 2020.