Methods: Under the guidance of a multi-level framework, the study analyzed the total and four subscales of age-normed Woodcock-Johnson Revised Tests of Achievement collected by CDS-PSID for about 3,000 children who resided in 2,000 PSID families. The 1968-1997 annual data of core PSID were used to reconstruct family histories for all study children. Key individual-level predictors include age, race, and gender. Key family-level predictors include mother’s total length of time using AFDC/TNAF, whether mother worked within 2 years of first welfare receipt, whether maternal grandmother ever used AFDC, and caregiver-reported measures of neighborhood resources. Autocorrelation due to sibling groups is controlled for by the mixed-effect specification embedded in HLM.
Results: Preliminary results support all four hypotheses to some extent, with the economic resource hypothesis (i.e., parent’s lack of resources hinders children’s human capital development) most strongly supported. The study also indicates that low academic achievement is linked to both mother’s and maternal grandmother’s welfare receipt, which partially confirms the hypothesis that family economic and non-economic resources determine children’s employability as adults.
Implications for Policy: Welfare reform may break the cycle
of intergenerational dependence on welfare, but its impact on child outcomes
remains an important issue of concern.