title: Welfare Reform and Children's Health.
abstract: This study investigates the effect of the Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) program on children's health outcomes using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation over the period 1994 to 2005. The TANF policies have been credited with increased employment for single mothers and a dramatic drop in welfare caseload. Our results show that these policies also had a significant effect on various measures of children's medical utilization among low-income families. These health measures include a rating of the child's health status reported by the parents, the number of times that parents consulted a doctor, and the number of nights that the child stayed in a hospital. We compare the overall changes of health status and medical utilization for children with working and nonworking mothers. We find that the child's health status as reported by the parents is affected by the maternal employment status.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.|Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY, USA.|Department of Economics, Leicester University, Leicester, UK.
authors.forename: Badi H
authors.initials: BH
authors.lastname: Baltagi
authors.affiliation: School of Public Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu, Sichuan, China.
authors.forename: Yin-Fang
authors.initials: YF
authors.lastname: Yen
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D000067576:Child Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002662:Child Health Services / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D004651:Employment / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D019458:Insurance Coverage / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D007348:Insurance, Health / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011632:Public Assistance / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D015406:Single Parent; D012946:Social Welfare / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States / Q000453:epidemiology; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: children's health; fixed effects; maternal employment; welfare