Marriage Patterns among Unwed Mothers: Before and after PRWORA

Autor/inn/en	Graefe, Deborah Roempke; Lichter, Daniel T.
Titel	Marriage Patterns among Unwed Mothers: Before and after PRWORA
Quelle	In: Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 27 (2008) 3, S.479-497 (19 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	0276-8739
DOI	10.1002/pam.20352
Schlagwörter	Employment Level; Unwed Mothers; Females; Marriage; Public Policy; Welfare Services; Child Welfare; Marital Status; Poverty; Socioeconomic Status; Federal Legislation; Family Income; Economic Factors; Individual Characteristics + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Beschäftigungsgrad; Unverheiratete Mutter; Weibliches Geschlecht; Ehe; Öffentliche Ordnung; Fürsorgeeinrichtung; Kindeswohl; Familienstand; Armut; Socio-economic status; Sozioökonomischer Status; Bundesrecht; Familieneinkommen; Ökonomischer Faktor; Personality characteristic; Personality traits; Persönlichkeitsmerkmal
Abstract	The promotion of marriage and two-parent families became an explicit public policy goal with the passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill. Marriage has the putative effect of reducing welfare dependency among single mothers, but only if they marry men with earnings sufficient to lift them and their children out of poverty. Newly released data from the 2002 cycle of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG), along with data from the 1995 cycle, allow us to compare pre- and post-PRWORA differences in (1) cumulative marriage rates among unwed mothers, and (2) patterns of marital choice (that is, differences in characteristics of the men these mothers marry, such as their education and employment status). Overall, our results show that unwed childbearing is associated with lower marriage rates and marital quality. Difference-in-difference models show that welfare reform was not strongly associated with pre- and post-welfare reform changes in marriage among nonmarital birth mothers, even among the most disadvantaged mothers. Compared with other women, nonmarital birth mothers also were less likely than other women to marry "economically attractive" men in the post-welfare reform period. The success of marriage promotion initiatives may depend heavily on whether women themselves are "marriageable" and whether potential spouses have the ability to support a stable family life. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables and 8 footnotes.) (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10