Neighborhood Socioeconomic Disadvantage, Residential Stability, and Perceptions of Social Support among New Mothers

Neighborhoods are important sites for the formation and development of social ties. In theory, living in a disadvantaged neighborhood may be associated with lacking social support. We investigate this hypothesis among mothers of young children using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study (N=4,211). We find that mothers in disadvantaged neighborhoods, compared with their counterparts in better neighborhoods, are less likely to have a safety net of friends or family to rely on for monetary or housing assistance. We also find that residential stability is associated with stronger personal safety nets. For mothers who move when their children are young, moving to a better neighborhood seems to have little effect on their perceived instrumental support, but moving to a more disadvantaged neighborhood is associated with a decline in instrumental support.

Mate Availability and Unmarried Parent Relationships

Theoretically, a shortage of males in a local marriage market may influence the formation, quality, and trajectory of unmarried parent relationships. To test these hypotheses, I combine city-level sex ratio data from the U.S. Census with microdata on unmarried couples who recently had a child from the Fragile Families study. A shortage of men in a marriage market is associated with lower relationship quality for unmarried parents. Male shortages are associated with lower rates of marriage following a nonmarital birth, and this is in part because of the mediating influence of relationship quality. A shortage of men is not significantly related to the economic quality of male, nonmarital childbearing partners

FRAGILE FAMILIES AND WELFARE REFORM

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) is designed to shift more of the responsibility for poor children from government to parents. To accomplish this goal, the new law requires welfare clients to work and limits the total number of years they can receive assistance. In addition, the new legislation requires unwed fathers to establish paternity and strengthens child support enforcement among nonresident fathers. Although many people believe that poor children would be better off if their mothers worked and their fathers were more involved in their upbringing, the scientific evidence for these assumptions is weak. We know very little about the ability of poor parents to support their children, and we know even less about their ability to cooperate with one another.

Do Public Expenditures Improve Child Outcomes in the U.S.? A Comparison across Fifty States

Our paper utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators, including measures of child mortality, elementary-school test scores, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. States that spend more on children have better child outcomes even after taking into account potential confounding influences. Our results are robust to numerous variations in model specifications and to the inclusion of proxies for unobserved characteristics of states. Our sensitivity analyses suggest that the results we present may be conservative, yet our findings show that public investments in children yield broad short-term returns in the form of improved child outcomes

Working in the Service Sector in Philadelphia

Nearly 100,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work. In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand. These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families

Working in the Service Sector in Philadelphia

Nearly 100,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work. In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand. These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families

Mandates Narrow Gender Gaps In Paid Sick Leave Coverage For Low-Wage Workers In The US.

Paid sick leave helps workers recover from illness and manage care obligations and protects public health. Yet access to paid sick leave remains limited and unequal in the United States. Drawing on surveys of 61,223 service-sector workers collected during the period 2017-21 by the Shift Project, we documented limited access to paid sick leave and stark gender inequality, with women less likely than men to have paid sick leave. Part-time employment and gender segregation by industry subsector each explain part, but not all, of the gender disparity. However, in states and localities that mandate paid sick leave for workers, workers are far more likely to report access to this benefit, and the gender gap is eliminated. Guaranteeing paid sick leave to all workers would offer a range of benefits for workers, employers, and public health while also offering the further benefit of reducing gender inequality

Working in the service sector in Connecticut

Nearly 250,000 workers are employed in the retail and food service sector in the state of Connecticut. Nationally, jobs in the service sector are characterized by low pay and few fringe benefits, and workers employed in the service sector have little control over the days and times that they will work. In addition, many service sector employers across the country rely on just-in-time and on-call scheduling practices designed to minimize labor costs by closely aligning staffing with consumer demand. These practices can introduce a great deal of instability into the lives of workers and their families