Maternal work and welfare use and child well-being: Evidence from 6 years of data from the Women's Employment Study

Using five waves of data from a study of former and current welfare recipients in Michigan, this study examines how the extent of work participation and welfare receipt over the period 1997–2003 is associated with child behavior. We use a fixed-effects regression design to control for all time-invariant characteristics of mothers and children. We find few associations between work and welfare participation and child behavior. In contrast, measures of household economic circumstances, such as financial strain and hassles, and mothers' psychological problems and stress were consistently associated with reports of child behavior. Overall, these results suggest that among welfare leavers followed over the longer term, work participation and welfare receipt, per se, are relatively less important correlates of children's behavior compared to the more proximate family economic and psychological stressors that persist despite leavers' substantially increased work and decreased welfare use over time.