Mothers' transitions from welfare to work and the well-being of preschoolers and adolescents.
Results from a longitudinal study of 2402 low-income families during the recent unprecedented era of welfare reform suggest that mothers' transitions off welfare and into employment are not associated with negative outcomes for preschoolers (ages 2 to 4 years) or young adolescents (ages 10 to 14 years). Indeed, no significant associations with mothers' welfare and employment transitions were found for preschoolers, and the dominant pattern was also of few statistically significant associations for adolescents. The associations that did occur provided slight evidence that mothers' entry into the labor force was related to improvements in adolescents' mental health, whereas exits from employment were linked with teenagers' increased behavior problems.
Chase-Lansdale
P Lindsay
PL
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, USA. lcl@northwestern.edu
Moffitt
Robert A
RA
Lohman
Brenda J
BJ
Cherlin
Andrew J
AJ
Coley
Rebekah Levine
RL
Pittman
Laura D
LD
Roff
Jennifer
J
Votruba-Drzal
Elizabeth
E
D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior; D002648:Child; D002652:Child Behavior; D002653:Child Behavior Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D004651:Employment; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D007223:Infant; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016018:Least-Squares Analysis; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008603:Mental Health; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D009035:Mothers; D016487:Parenting; D011632:Public Assistance; D012946:Social Welfare; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology