Showing papers by "Robert Haveman published in 1993"

Teen out-of-wedlock births and welfare receipt: the role of childhood events and economic circumstances.

Abstract: Using 20 years of longitudinal data on nearly 900 girls aged 0 to 6 in 1968 (19 to 25 in 1987) from the University of Michigans Panel Study of Income Dynamics the authors measure the influence of family background individual characteristics economic resources (or the lack thereof) and the experience of particular disruptive family events on the probability that a teenager will give birth out of wedlock and subsequently apply for and receive welfare....Among the many findings of the investigators is that teenage daughters whose mothers have more education are less likely to give birth out of wedlock that teens whose mothers received welfare are more likely to give birth out of wedlock and receive welfare themselves and that teens who grew up in a home experiencing stressful events (e.g. parental separation geographic moves) are more likely to give birth out of wedlock. (EXCERPT)

How people with disabilities fare when public policies change

Abstract: Changes in public policy and in macroeconomic conditions have dramatically affected the economic well-being of people with disabilities over the past two decades, both absolutely and relative to people without disabilities. Using data from the Current Population Survey (1968–1988), we find that the households of white or well-educated males with disabilities have fully recovered from the program cuts and recession of the early 1980s. However, much of this recovery was due to additional earnings by other household members. The households of males who are “doubly handicapped”—nonwhite or poorly educated males with disabilities—have not recovered. We conclude that the new mandates on business aimed at integrating people with disabilities into the workplace are not likely to significantly benefit the doubly handicapped.

Children's Prospects and Children's Policy

Abstract: attainments, followed by evidence on low rates of saving and investment, high and persistent public deficits, and deteriorating public infrastructure. Discussions of poverty in America inevitably include statistics on child poverty rates, which are higher than those of other groups, higher than they have been in the past, and higher than they are in other developed countries. These statistics also show an increasing share of the nation's children growing up in mother-only households, in dysfunctional neighborhoods, and dependent on welfare. Discussions of Social Security often include statements concerning how we have done well by our older citizens, while neglecting children. Children also are brought into policy debates over other issues. To many, welfare support for unmarried women who care for children at home seems inconsistent with the fact that well over half of married women with children are now working. Debates over housing policy reflect the belief that past policies bear much of the responsibility for concentrating children in neighborhoods that foster joblessness, school failure, drug use, and crime. The debate over education reform-school choice, magnet schools, busing-starts from a

Escaping poverty through work: the problem of low earnings capacity in the united states, 1973–88

Abstract: This paper documents the changes in earnings capacity poverty that occurred between 1973 and 1088. Families are “Earnings Capacity Poor” if they are unable to generate enough income to lift them out of poverty, even if all working-age adults in the family work full-time, year-round. Data from the March 1974 and March 1989 Current Population Surveys indicate that earnings capacity poverty increased more rapidly than official poverty. Much of this increase can be attributed to the rise in earnings capacity poverty among whites, intact families, and family heads with more than a high school diploma. Most alarming, the percentage of children in earnings capacity poor families is considerably higher than it is among persons over eighteen; in 1988, nearly 15 percent of children under six lived in families that could not have escaped poverty even if the adults in their family were working and earning at their full capacity levels.

Who are the Truly Poor? Patterns of Official and Net Earnings Capacity Poverty, 1973–88

Abstract: In this paper we study changes in the prevalence and composition of poverty in the United States over the 1973–88 period, focusing on the first and last years. Over this period, official poverty rose from 23.6 million people (11.4 percent of the population) to 31.9 million (13.1 percent), passing over a peak in the recession of 1981–83 of over 15 percent of the population.1