Financial Stress, Family Conflict, and Youths' Successful Transition to Adult Roles

We analyze the effect of mothers' and youths' reports of family financial stress and conflict on youths' transitions into adult roles. We find that mothers’ reports of financial stresses and borrowing constraints are associated with earlier transitions to inactivity and public assistance, while youth reports of financial stresses are associated with earlier nest-leaving. Youths reporting conflict with parents leave school and move out earlier than their peers, while conflict between parents is associated with youth making later transitions. Overall, financial stress and conflict have independent effects on youths' transitions and youths' perspectives have different consequences to those of their mothers.youths, financial stress, family conflict

Financial Stress, Family Conflict, and Youths’ Successful Transition to Adult Roles

We analyze the effect of mothers’ and youths’ reports of family financial stress and conflict on youths’ transitions into adult roles. We find that mothers’ reports of financial stresses and borrowing constraints are associated with earlier transitions to inactivity and public assistance, while youth reports of financial stresses are associated with earlier nest-leaving. Youths reporting conflict with parents leave school and move out earlier than their peers, while conflict between parents is associated with youth making later transitions. Overall, financial stress and conflict have independent effects on youths’ transitions and youths’ perspectives have different consequences to those of their mothers.youths, financial stress, family conflict

Food Stamp Participation among Adult-Only Households

Several recent changes in the Food Stamp Program have been directed toward households without children. Some, including new work requirements for able-bodied adults without dependents (ABAWDs), were intended to promote self-sufficiency, while others, including easier application and recertification procedures, were intended to increase participation among underserved groups, such as the disabled and the elderly. Despite their relevance to policymakers, adult-only households have been examined by only a few studies. We use administrative records from South Carolina and event-history methods to investigate how spells of food stamp participation for adult-only households vary with ABAWD provisions, recertification intervals, economic conditions and other characteristics. We find that households that were subject to ABAWD policies had shorter spells and lower rates of food stamp participation than other households. We also find that households were much more likely to leave the Food Stamp Program at recertification dates than at other dates. Compared to married households, exit rates were lower for households in high unemployment areas, for female- and black-headed households, for individuals with less education, and for never-married households. We further find that the time limit was associated with exits with and without earnings, suggesting that this policy increased self-sufficiency for some households but left others without support.Food stamps, hazard models, time limits, recertification

Dynamics of Merit-Based Scholarships in Georgia

Georgia offers two large merit-based scholarships to in-state college students: HOPE Scholarships which provide partial tuition support and Zell Miller Scholarships which provide full tuition support but with more stringent eligibility and retention conditions. While previous research has documented inequalities in initial merit scholarship, this study examines how the dynamics of scholarship gains and losses differ for students of color and students who are economically vulnerable, and across institutions, adding to a fuller understanding of inequality in merit-based scholarship receipt. We find that students’ scholarship status changes frequently, with 23 percent of students changing their status at least once and with higher rates of scholarship loss among HOPE Scholarship recipients. White students are more likely than Black and Hispanic students to enter college with a HOPE Scholarship and, particularly, with a Zell Miller Scholarship. Patterns of scholarship loss and gain over students’ careers widen these disparities as Black and Hispanic students are more likely than other students to lose scholarships and less likely to gain or regain them. Men, students from families with lower incomes, independent students, Pell grant recipients, and student loan recipients are also less likely to enter institutions with Zell Miller or HOPE Scholarships, less likely to retain scholarships if they do hold them, and less likely to gain scholarships during college. The report concludes with policy implications and proposals to address these inequalities.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/gpl_reports/1006/thumbnail.jp

The Stability of Subsidized Childcare in Georgia

Georgia’s Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program provides scholarships for children in families with low incomes and in vulnerable circumstances to help them obtain high-quality childcare at a subsidized value. The scholarships are intended to subsidize childcare costs while parents/caregivers work or prepare themselves for work through school or training. The scholarships give families flexibility by allowing them to choose a care provider and type of care (subject to some restrictions). Stable childcare arrangements for families participating in the program are an important aspect of quality. In this technical report, Rodrigo Aranda and David C. Ribar use 2015 to 2020 CAPS program records to investigate stability in the program by examining continuous, uninterrupted periods (i.e., spells) of children holding CAPS scholarships, receiving subsidized care from the same provider, and holding scholarships but not using them. We find that most CAPS scholarship spells are stable, with nearly two-thirds lasting six months or more, 30% lasting a year or more, and 15% lasting two years or more. We also find that care arrangements are relatively stable, with only about a third of children ever changing providers. However, many children take breaks from their providers—often when they continue to hold scholarships. Nearly two-thirds of children have spells where they hold a scholarship but do not use it. Most spells of non-use are short and last about three weeks. Care arrangement spells tend to be shorter for older children and are stable across demographic characteristics, such as race and ethnicity. Many care arrangement spells end when families are required to renew their eligibility for CAPS services.https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/gpl_reports/1022/thumbnail.jp

Unmet Subsidized Child Care Demand in Georgia

Georgia’s Childcare and Parent Services (CAPS) program is intended to help low-income and other families experiencing vulnerabilities obtain high-quality child care, increase children’s school readiness, and help families become economically self-sufficient by subsidizing child care costs while caregivers work or prepare themselves for work through school or training. The program can play a valuable role, but its reach and funding are limited. This research brief examines the number of children aged zero to five years old in Georgia who were served by the CAPS program in state fiscal year 2018, the number of unserved children who lived in foster care or in families that met the program’s income and work requirements, and the costs of extending services to more of these children

Earnings Volatility and the Reasons for Leaving the Food Stamp Program

This paper uses administrative records from South Carolina on food stamp households with children to look generally at the characteristics of households that contribute to exits from the Food Stamp Program and more specifically at the reasons why households leave the program. The study focuses on how earnings histories and earnings volatility are associated with different types of exits. The analyses reveal that half of South Carolina’s food stamp households with children exited because they let their certification periods lapse without filing the necessary paperwork for recertification, and a further sixth exited because they failed to provide sufficient or verifiable information. Only about one-fifth of exits were due to explicit determinations of income or resource ineligibility. The households that failed to recertify had worse economic circumstances on average—lower and more variable incomes—than households determined to be income ineligible but better circumstances than other exiting households. Households with lower benefits and higher incomes were more likely than other households to let their certifications lapse. For white households, more variable earnings histories were negatively associated with exits for income ineligibility. For both black and white households, mor

Occupational Status and Health Transitions

We use longitudinal data from the 1984 through 2007 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine how occupational status is related to the health transitions of 30 to 59 year-old U.S. males. A recent history of blue-collar employment predicts a substantial increase in the probability of transitioning from very good into bad self-assessed health, relative to white-collar employment, but with no evidence of occupational differences in movements from bad to very good health. These findings are robust to a series of sensitivity analyses. The results suggest that blue-collar workers "wear out" faster with age because they are more likely, than their white-collar counterparts, to experience negative health shocks. This partly reflects differences in the physical demands of blue-collar and white-collar jobs.occupations, physical demands, health

"Parental Child Care in Single Parent, Cohabiting, and Married Couple Families: Time Diary Evidence from the United States and the United Kingdom"

This study uses time diary data from the 2003 American Time Use Survey and the United Kingdom Time Use Survey 2000 to examine the time that single, cohabiting, and married parents devote to caring for their children. Time spent in market work, in child care as a primary activity, and in child care as a passive activity are jointly modeled using a correlated, censored regression model. Separate estimates are provided by gender, by country, and by weekend/weekday day. We find no evidence that these time allocation decisions differ for cohabiting and married parents, but there is evidence that single persons allocate time differently - as might be expected, given different household time constraints. In the U.S. single fathers spend significantly more time in primary child care on weekdays and substantially less time in passive child care on weekends than their married or cohabiting counterparts, while in the UK single fathers spend significantly more time in passive child care on weekdays. Single fathers in each country report less time at work on weekdays than their married or cohabiting counterparts. In the U.S., single mothers work more than married or cohabiting mothers on weekdays, while single mothers in the United Kingdom work less than married or cohabiting mothers on all days.