Illinois has cut its welfare roles in half in the past six years. But what strategies are women using to make the change to a self-sufficient life? Dan Lewis (IPR-Education and Social Policy) was awarded a two-year, $150,000 grant from the Searle Fund to identify the factors that lead to independence from welfare in Illinois. The study will draw its participants from the Illinois Families Study, a larger study of welfare reform, of which Lewis is the principal investigator. Both undergraduate and graduate students will make up the research team. They will conduct in-depth ethnographic interviews to go beyond statistical relationships to shed light on the subtle issues that affect independence. These issues include the role of relationships with partners, friends and family; how women balance being a good mother and a good employee; the role of the community; and the effects of an individual's personality, temperament, and intelligence.

...and Detached Fathers

P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and Greg Duncan (IPR-Education and Social Policy) were awarded a $125,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation to launch a new project, "Interview of Parents of Infants." This qualitative study will follow a subset of families from a larger national study, the Fragile Families Study, directed by Sara McLanahan at Princeton and Irwin Garfinkel at Columbia. The larger study will interview more than 4,000 couples (married and unmarried) in 22 cities at the birth of their child and follow them for four years. The focus is on why so many fathers are disconnecting from their families. The IPR study will follow 75 families in Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York in greater depth, interviewing the couples and the partners individually within six weeks of the birth of the child. The project's goal is to uncover reasons why couples separate during the first year of the child's life and why and how some fathers remain involved with their children.