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Robert Kaestner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Welfare Reform and Health of Immigrant Women and their Children
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 2007Co-Authors: Neeraj Kaushal, Robert KaestnerAbstract:We investigate the association between the 1996 Welfare Reform and health insurance, medical care use and health of low-educated, foreign-born, single mothers and their children. We find that Welfare Reform was associated with an eight to 11.5 percentage points increase in proportion uninsured among low-educated foreign-born, single mothers. We also find that the decline in Welfare caseload since 1996 was associated with a 6.5 to 10 percentage points increase in the proportion of low-educated foreign-born, single mothers reporting delays in receiving medical care or receiving no care due to cost and a nine percentage points decline in visits to a health professional in the past 12 months. We do not find any consistent evidence that Welfare Reform affected the health insurance, medical care utilization and health of children living with single mothers.
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Immigrant and Native Responses to Welfare Reform
Journal of Population Economics, 2005Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj KaushalAbstract:In this paper, we investigate the effect of federal Welfare Reform on the employment, hours of work and marriage rates of three groups of low-educated women: foreign-born citizens, foreign-born non-citizens and native-born citizens. Among non-citizens, we investigate whether the behavioral response to Welfare Reform differed by recency of immigration. Finally, because some states created programs to insure that all legal immigrants remained eligible for benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program and others did not, we compare the response of foreign-born non-citizens between these states to investigate whether the immigrant provisions of federal Welfare Reform legislation had a 'chilling' effect. The results suggest that Welfare Reform induced native-born citizens and foreign- born non-citizens to increase their employment and attachment to the labor market. TANF appears to have had a larger effect on the least educated native-born women and among foreign-born non-citizens, a larger effect on more recent arrivals. The 'chilling' hypothesis that has received so much attention in the popular press is not supported by our results. Finally, our estimates indicate that TANF had no effect on native- and foreign-born citizens' marriage decisions. TANF was associated with a decrease in the marriage rates of foreign-born non-citizens.
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The effect of Welfare Reform on prenatal care and birth weight
Health economics, 2005Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Won Chan LeeAbstract:Welfare Reform has resulted in a dramatic decline in Welfare caseloads and some have claimed that a significant number of low-income women may be without health insurance as a result. The loss of insurance may reduce low-income, pregnant women's health care utilization, and this may adversely affect infant health. Welfare Reform also may affect healthcare utilization and health of pregnant women and infants because of Welfare-induced changes in family disposable income, time available for health investments, and levels of stress. In this paper we examine the effect of Welfare Reform on prenatal care utilization and birth weight of low-educated women and their infants. We find that a 50% reduction in the caseload, which is similar to that which occurred in the 1990s, is associated with a zero to seven percent decrease in first trimester prenatal care; a zero to five percent decrease in the number of prenatal care visits; and a zero to 10% increase in low birth weight. Since Welfare Reform was responsible for only part of the decline in the caseload, Welfare Reform per se had even smaller effects. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Welfare Reform, Health Insurance, and Health
2003Co-Authors: Robert KaestnerAbstract:In 1996, Congress passed and the President signed the Personal Responsibility, and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA), or what has become known as Welfare Reform. To many, Welfare Reform has been an unqualified success; Welfare rolls decreased markedly and single mothers began working in unprecedented numbers. (1) Moreover, poverty rates among single mothers have decreased sharply. (2) Welfare Reform may have had some unintended consequences, though, particularly the loss of health insurance. However, contrary to some earlier studies, my research finds that Welfare Reform was responsible for only a small increase, less than 4 percent, in the proportion of less educated, unmarried mothers and their children without health insurance. And, consistent with these small effects on insurance, I find that changes in the Welfare caseload attributable to Welfare Reform were associated with few adverse health effects among less-educated, unmarried mothers. Indeed, changes in the Welfare caseload were associated with some significant improvements in healthy lifestyles among this group. Decreases in the Welfare caseload between January 1996 and June 2000 were associated with a 30 percent decrease in the probability of binge drinking in the past month, and a 27 percent increase in the probability of engaging in regular and sustained physical activity. The potential loss of health insurance was an important concern of Congress during the debate leading to passage of PRWORA. In fact, PRWORA contains provisions "assuring Medicaid coverage for low income families," which provides--among other things--transitional Medicaid benefits for those who leave Welfare. If Welfare Reform led to loss of health insurance coverage, as has been claimed, it might have adversely affected the health of persons in these families. Furthermore, Welfare Reform could have affected women's health in ways other than through changes in insurance coverage. Between 1994 and 2000, approximately one-fifth of all low-educated, single mothers made the transition from Welfare-to-work. The switch from subsidized household work to paid employment could affect financial resources, time constraints, and the amount and kind of physical activity, all of which may affect women's health and health behaviors. On the other hand, employment may result in improved feelings of self worth, increased earnings, and greater access to quality health care through employer sponsored insurance, and these changes may improve women's health. Surprisingly, there has been relatively little study of the effect of Welfare Reform on health insurance cover age and health, even though health is an essential component of well-being and arguably is as important as material wellbeing, which has been a widely studied outcome of Welfare Reform. Here I report on some recent research related to these issues. Welfare Reform and Health Insurance It is widely believed that an unintended consequence of Welfare Reform was the loss of health insurance coverage among low-income families. This belief is based on several pieces of information: studies of Welfare "leavers" find that a substantial proportion of former Welfare recipients are uninsured in the year after leaving Welfare; (3) studies of the effect of Welfare Reform on Medicaid enrollment find a significant decline in Medicaid enrollment among low-income women and children after the implementation of Welfare Reform; (4) and there is evidence that administrative hurdles limit enrollment in Medicaid for low-income families not receiving public assistance. (5) However, none of this evidence is definitive. Consider the "leaver" studies, for example. These studies cannot differentiate between women and children who left public assistance because of Welfare Reform, and those who left voluntarily--that is, those who would have left public assistance even in the absence of Reform. The evidence suggests that between one-tenth and one-third of the decline in Welfare caseloads is a result of Welfare Reform. …
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Welfare Reform and health insurance coverage of low income families
Journal of Health Economics, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj KaushalAbstract:We study whether Welfare Reform adversely affected the health insurance coverage of low-educated single mothers and their children. Specifically, we investigate whether changes in the Welfare caseload during the 1990s were associated with changes in Medicaid participation, private insurance coverage, and the number of uninsured among single mothers and their children. Estimates suggest that between 1996 and 1999, the 42% decrease in the Welfare caseload was associated with the following changes in insurance coverage among low-educated, single mothers: a 7-9% decrease in Medicaid coverage; an increase in employer-sponsored, private insurance coverage of 6%; and a 2-9% increase in the proportion uninsured. Among children of low-educated, single mothers, effects were somewhat smaller. Since Welfare policy was responsible for only part (e.g. one-third) of the decline in the caseload, Welfare Reform per se had significantly smaller effects on the health insurance status of low-income families. However, we found limited evidence that changes in the caseload due to state and federal Welfare policy had fewer adverse consequences on insurance status than changes in the caseload due to other factors. This implies even smaller effects of Welfare Reform.
Neeraj Kaushal - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Welfare Reform and Health of Immigrant Women and their Children
Journal of Immigrant and Minority Health, 2007Co-Authors: Neeraj Kaushal, Robert KaestnerAbstract:We investigate the association between the 1996 Welfare Reform and health insurance, medical care use and health of low-educated, foreign-born, single mothers and their children. We find that Welfare Reform was associated with an eight to 11.5 percentage points increase in proportion uninsured among low-educated foreign-born, single mothers. We also find that the decline in Welfare caseload since 1996 was associated with a 6.5 to 10 percentage points increase in the proportion of low-educated foreign-born, single mothers reporting delays in receiving medical care or receiving no care due to cost and a nine percentage points decline in visits to a health professional in the past 12 months. We do not find any consistent evidence that Welfare Reform affected the health insurance, medical care utilization and health of children living with single mothers.
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Immigrant and Native Responses to Welfare Reform
Journal of Population Economics, 2005Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj KaushalAbstract:In this paper, we investigate the effect of federal Welfare Reform on the employment, hours of work and marriage rates of three groups of low-educated women: foreign-born citizens, foreign-born non-citizens and native-born citizens. Among non-citizens, we investigate whether the behavioral response to Welfare Reform differed by recency of immigration. Finally, because some states created programs to insure that all legal immigrants remained eligible for benefits under the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program and others did not, we compare the response of foreign-born non-citizens between these states to investigate whether the immigrant provisions of federal Welfare Reform legislation had a 'chilling' effect. The results suggest that Welfare Reform induced native-born citizens and foreign- born non-citizens to increase their employment and attachment to the labor market. TANF appears to have had a larger effect on the least educated native-born women and among foreign-born non-citizens, a larger effect on more recent arrivals. The 'chilling' hypothesis that has received so much attention in the popular press is not supported by our results. Finally, our estimates indicate that TANF had no effect on native- and foreign-born citizens' marriage decisions. TANF was associated with a decrease in the marriage rates of foreign-born non-citizens.
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Welfare Reform and health insurance coverage of low income families
Journal of Health Economics, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj KaushalAbstract:We study whether Welfare Reform adversely affected the health insurance coverage of low-educated single mothers and their children. Specifically, we investigate whether changes in the Welfare caseload during the 1990s were associated with changes in Medicaid participation, private insurance coverage, and the number of uninsured among single mothers and their children. Estimates suggest that between 1996 and 1999, the 42% decrease in the Welfare caseload was associated with the following changes in insurance coverage among low-educated, single mothers: a 7-9% decrease in Medicaid coverage; an increase in employer-sponsored, private insurance coverage of 6%; and a 2-9% increase in the proportion uninsured. Among children of low-educated, single mothers, effects were somewhat smaller. Since Welfare policy was responsible for only part (e.g. one-third) of the decline in the caseload, Welfare Reform per se had significantly smaller effects on the health insurance status of low-income families. However, we found limited evidence that changes in the caseload due to state and federal Welfare policy had fewer adverse consequences on insurance status than changes in the caseload due to other factors. This implies even smaller effects of Welfare Reform.
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Welfare Reform and health insurance coverage of low income families
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj KaushalAbstract:We study whether Welfare Reform adversely affected the health insurance coverage of low-educated single mothers and their children. Specifically, we investigate whether changes in the Welfare caseload during the 1990s were associated with changes in Medicaid participation, private insurance coverage, and the number of uninsured among single mothers and their children. Estimates suggest that between 1996 and 1999, the 42 percent decrease in the Welfare caseload was associated with the following changes in insurance coverage among low-educated, single mothers: a seven to nine percent decrease in Medicaid coverage; an increase in employer-sponsored, private insurance coverage of six percent; and a two to nine percent increase in the proportion uninsured. Among children of low-educated, single mothers, effects were somewhat smaller. Since Welfare policy was responsible for only part (e.g., one-third) of the decline in the caseload, Welfare Reform per se had significantly smaller effects on the health insurance status of low-income families. However, we found limited evidence that changes in the caseload due to state and federal Welfare policy had fewer adverse consequences on insurance status than changes in the caseload due to other factors. This implies even smaller effects of Welfare Reform.
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MIGRATION CONSEQUENCES OF Welfare Reform
Journal of Urban Economics, 2003Co-Authors: Robert Kaestner, Neeraj Kaushal, Gregg G. Van RyzinAbstract:In this paper, we investigate whether or not recent state and federal changes in Welfare policy -- the imposition of time-limited benefits, the use of financial sanctions for non-compliance, and the setting of strict work eligibility rules -- affect the migration of low-educated unmarried women. Estimates of Welfare's effect on migration reveal that Welfare policy does indeed affect migration. Recent changes in policy that have made public assistance a less attractive alternative are associated with greater migration among low-educated unmarried women. Welfare Reform has motivated low-educated women to move greater distances more frequently, and to combine such moves with employment. Estimates also indicate that Welfare Reform is associated with more local (i.e., within county) changes in residential location that are associated with employment, although estimates of this effect were not robust to estimation method. The close link between residential moves and employment in the post-Reform period is consistent with the idea that Welfare Reform has motivated people to move for economic reasons such as better employment opportunities. This evidence suggests that the traditional way of thinking about the effect of Welfare on migration -- as a strategic move to obtain higher benefits -- is inadequate.
Hilary Williamson Hoynes - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Welfare Reform and children s living arrangements
Journal of Human Resources, 2006Co-Authors: Marianne P. Bitler, Jonah B. Gelbach, Hilary Williamson HoynesAbstract:Relatively little is known about the impact of Welfare Reform on children's living arrangements, which was an important focus of Reformers. We use data from the March CPS to examine this question. Our findings suggest three main conclusions. First, Welfare Reform in some cases has had large effects on parental co-residence among children. Second, those effects are neither entirely aligned with the stated goals of Reform nor entirely in spite of these goals. Third, there is a great deal of treatment effect heterogeneity both with respect to racial and ethnic groups and with respect to whether Reforms were waivers, TANF in states that had waivers, or TANF in states that did not.
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Welfare Reform and Indirect Impacts on Health
2006Co-Authors: Marianne P. Bitler, Hilary Williamson HoynesAbstract:The stated goals of Welfare Reform are to increase work, reduce dependency on Welfare, reduce births outside marriage, and to increase the formation of two parent families. However, Welfare Reform may also have indirect impacts on health. We provide a comprehensive review of the literature on the impacts of Welfare Reform on health. We illustrate the main findings from the literature by presenting estimates of the impact of Reform on health insurance, health utilization, and health status using data from five state waiver experiments. The most consistent finding is that Welfare Reform led to a reduction in health insurance coverage. The impacts on health care utilization and health status tend to be more mixed and fewer are statistically significant. While the results are not conclusive, they suggest that Welfare-to-work programs need not have large negative health effects.
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Welfare Reform and Health - Welfare Reform and Health
Journal of Human Resources, 2005Co-Authors: Marianne P. Bitler, Jonah B. Gelbach, Hilary Williamson HoynesAbstract:We investigate the relationship between Welfare Reform and health insurance, health care utilization, and self-reported measures of health status for women aged 20-45, using nationally representative data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We present estimates from both difference-in-difference models (applied to single women and single women with children) and difference-in-difference-in-difference models (using married women and single women without children as comparison groups). We find that Welfare Reform is associated with reductions in health insurance coverage and specific measures of health care utilization, as well as an increase in the likelihood of needing care but finding it unaffordable. We find no statistically significant effects of Reform on health status. Overall, effects are somewhat larger for Hispanics compared to blacks and low educated women.
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Welfare Reform and Health
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2004Co-Authors: Marianne P. Bitler, Jonah B. Gelbach, Hilary Williamson HoynesAbstract:We investigate the relationship between Welfare Reform and health insurance, health care utilization, and self-reported measures of health status for women aged 20-45, using nationally representative data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We present estimates from both difference-in-difference models (applied to single women and single women with children) and difference-in-difference-in-difference models (using married women and single women without children as comparison groups). We find that Welfare Reform is associated with reductions in health insurance coverage and specific measures of health care utilization, as well as an increase in the likelihood of needing care but finding it unaffordable. We find no statistically significant effects of Reform on health status. Overall, effects are somewhat larger for Hispanics compared to blacks and low educated women.
Dhaval M. Dave - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Voting Participation
Economic Inquiry, 2017Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:Voting is an important form of civic participation in democratic societies but a fundamental right that many citizens do not exercise. This study investigates the effects of Welfare Reform in the U.S. in the 1990s on voting of low income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in Welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of Welfare Reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period during which Welfare Reform unfolded. We find robust evidence that Welfare Reform increased the likelihood of voting by about 4 percentage points, which translates to about a 10% increase relative to the baseline mean. The effects were largely confined to Presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime
International Review of Law and Economics, 2014Co-Authors: Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the Welfare Reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We base the analyses on the supply of crime model in the human capital literature which emphasizes the importance of employment prospects in the legal and illegal labor markets. We find suggestive evidence that Welfare Reform decreased female arrests for property crimes (by 4–5%), but that it did not affect arrests for other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with larger Welfare caseload declines. As Welfare Reform policies are targeted to females, it is empirically validating that we do not find any substantively or statistically significant effects of Welfare Reform on crime among males. The findings point to broad-based work incentives—and, by inference, employment—as an important determinant of female property crime.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013Co-Authors: Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the Welfare Reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We find that Welfare Reform decreased female property crime arrests by 4-5%, but did not affect other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with lower Welfare benefits and higher earnings disregards, and in states with larger caseload declines. The findings point to broad-based work incentives--and, by inference, employment--as a key determinant of female property crime.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Education Acquisition of Adult Women.
Journal of labor research, 2012Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:Education beyond traditional ages for schooling is an important source of human capital acquisition among adult women. Welfare Reform, which began in the early 1990s and culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, promoted work rather than education acquisition for this group. Exploiting variation in Welfare Reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, we undertake a comprehensive study of the effects of Welfare Reform on adult women’s education acquisition. We first estimate effects of Welfare Reform on high school drop-out of teenage girls, both to improve upon past research on this issue and to explore compositional changes that may be relevant for our primary analyses of the effects of Welfare Reform on education acquisition among adult women. We find that Welfare Reform significantly reduced the probability that teens from disadvantaged families dropped out of high school, by about 15%. We then estimate the effects of Welfare Reform on adult women's school enrollment and conduct numerous specification checks, investigate compositional selection and policy endogeneity, explore lagged effects, stratify by TANF work incentives and education policies, consider alternative comparison groups, and explore the mediating role of work. We find robust and convincing evidence that Welfare Reform significantly decreased the probability of college enrollment among adult women at risk of Welfare receipt, by at least 20%. It also appears to have decreased the probability of high school enrollment among this group, on the same order of magnitude. Future research is needed to determine the extent to which this behavioral change translates to future economic outcomes.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Vocational Education and Training.
Economics of education review, 2011Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. Reichman, Dhiman DasAbstract:Exploiting variation in Welfare Reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, this study estimates the effects of Welfare Reform on an important source of human capital acquisition among women at risk for relying on Welfare: vocational education and training. The results suggest that Welfare Reform reduced enrollment in full-time vocational education and had no significant effects on part-time vocational education or participation in other types of work-related courses, though there appears to be considerable heterogeneity across states with respect to the strictness of educational policy and the strength of work incentives under Welfare Reform. In addition, we find evidence of heterogeneous effects by prior educational attainment. We find no evidence that the previously observed negative effects of Welfare Reform on formal education (including college enrollment), which we replicated in this study, have been offset by increases in vocational education and training.
Nancy E. Reichman - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Voting Participation
Economic Inquiry, 2017Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:Voting is an important form of civic participation in democratic societies but a fundamental right that many citizens do not exercise. This study investigates the effects of Welfare Reform in the U.S. in the 1990s on voting of low income women. Using the November Current Population Surveys with the added Voting and Registration Supplement for the years 1990 through 2004 and exploiting changes in Welfare policy across states and over time, we estimate the causal effects of Welfare Reform on women's voting registration and voting participation during the period during which Welfare Reform unfolded. We find robust evidence that Welfare Reform increased the likelihood of voting by about 4 percentage points, which translates to about a 10% increase relative to the baseline mean. The effects were largely confined to Presidential elections, were stronger in Democratic than Republican states, were stronger in states with stronger work incentive policies, and appeared to operate through employment, education, and income.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime
International Review of Law and Economics, 2014Co-Authors: Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the Welfare Reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We base the analyses on the supply of crime model in the human capital literature which emphasizes the importance of employment prospects in the legal and illegal labor markets. We find suggestive evidence that Welfare Reform decreased female arrests for property crimes (by 4–5%), but that it did not affect arrests for other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with larger Welfare caseload declines. As Welfare Reform policies are targeted to females, it is empirically validating that we do not find any substantively or statistically significant effects of Welfare Reform on crime among males. The findings point to broad-based work incentives—and, by inference, employment—as an important determinant of female property crime.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Women's Crime
National Bureau of Economic Research, 2013Co-Authors: Hope Corman, Dhaval M. Dave, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:We investigate the effects of broad-based work incentives on female crime by exploiting the Welfare Reform legislation of the 1990s, which dramatically increased employment among women at risk for relying on cash assistance. We find that Welfare Reform decreased female property crime arrests by 4-5%, but did not affect other types of crimes. The effects appear to be stronger in states with lower Welfare benefits and higher earnings disregards, and in states with larger caseload declines. The findings point to broad-based work incentives--and, by inference, employment--as a key determinant of female property crime.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Education Acquisition of Adult Women.
Journal of labor research, 2012Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. ReichmanAbstract:Education beyond traditional ages for schooling is an important source of human capital acquisition among adult women. Welfare Reform, which began in the early 1990s and culminated in the passage of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in 1996, promoted work rather than education acquisition for this group. Exploiting variation in Welfare Reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, we undertake a comprehensive study of the effects of Welfare Reform on adult women’s education acquisition. We first estimate effects of Welfare Reform on high school drop-out of teenage girls, both to improve upon past research on this issue and to explore compositional changes that may be relevant for our primary analyses of the effects of Welfare Reform on education acquisition among adult women. We find that Welfare Reform significantly reduced the probability that teens from disadvantaged families dropped out of high school, by about 15%. We then estimate the effects of Welfare Reform on adult women's school enrollment and conduct numerous specification checks, investigate compositional selection and policy endogeneity, explore lagged effects, stratify by TANF work incentives and education policies, consider alternative comparison groups, and explore the mediating role of work. We find robust and convincing evidence that Welfare Reform significantly decreased the probability of college enrollment among adult women at risk of Welfare receipt, by at least 20%. It also appears to have decreased the probability of high school enrollment among this group, on the same order of magnitude. Future research is needed to determine the extent to which this behavioral change translates to future economic outcomes.
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Effects of Welfare Reform on Vocational Education and Training.
Economics of education review, 2011Co-Authors: Dhaval M. Dave, Hope Corman, Nancy E. Reichman, Dhiman DasAbstract:Exploiting variation in Welfare Reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, this study estimates the effects of Welfare Reform on an important source of human capital acquisition among women at risk for relying on Welfare: vocational education and training. The results suggest that Welfare Reform reduced enrollment in full-time vocational education and had no significant effects on part-time vocational education or participation in other types of work-related courses, though there appears to be considerable heterogeneity across states with respect to the strictness of educational policy and the strength of work incentives under Welfare Reform. In addition, we find evidence of heterogeneous effects by prior educational attainment. We find no evidence that the previously observed negative effects of Welfare Reform on formal education (including college enrollment), which we replicated in this study, have been offset by increases in vocational education and training.
