Working It Out
Study shows children neither harmed nor helped when welfare mothers go to work

Summer 2003, Volume 25, Number 1

P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale

The calls poured in from Boston, New York, even the UK. Fortunately, Professor P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale and her coauthors were prepared for the media onslaught that their article generated. Published in the March 7 issue of Science, “Mothers’ Transitions from Welfare to Work and the Well-Being of Preschoolers and Adolescents” made waves not only with the press—more than 100 articles about it appeared, plus spots on national radio and television—but also with policymakers, who are currently facing the reauthorization of the 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, of which Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) is a part.

The study suggests—at least in the short run and during good economic times—that children in low-income families are not helped or harmed, on average, when their mothers leave welfare or move into the workforce.

Conducted during the “boom years” from 1999 to mid-2001, the $20 million Three-City Study focuses on the cognitive achievement, problem behaviors, and psychological well-being exhibited by preschoolers (2-4 years old) and adolescents (10-14 years old), who are living in poor neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. In all, 2,402 low-income children and their mothers were interviewed extensively.

Given the politically charged nature of the debate and Science’s prestige and dissemination network, the resulting coverage was not surprising. “The U.S. is very ambivalent about mothers in the workforce and the effect that it has on kids,” said Chase-Lansdale, faculty fellow at IPR and professor of developmental psychology. “We touched a nerve.”

Conscious of the fact that their findings could play to either side of the welfare debate, the researchers felt it was not their role to take sides or to make policy recommendations, but instead, to provide unbiased information that could frame the ensuing dialogue. “We wanted to be respected as scientists on both sides of the aisle,” Chase-Lansdale said. The thrust of the study, she pointed out, was to provide answers to the question, “How do children function when their mothers go to work or leave welfare?”

The findings of the Science study fit with earlier studies on maternal employment and welfare participation, with one exception, according to Chase-Lansdale. In contrast to earlier experimental studies that found negative effects of maternal employment on adolescents, the Science study found no evidence of harmful effects on adolescents. In fact, the study reports slight evidence that mothers’ entry into the labor force was related to improvements in adolescents’ mental health, while exits from employment were linked with teenagers’ increased behavior problems.

In other words, the basic thrust of welfare reform—requiring mothers to make the transition from welfare to work—might not be as harmful to children as many people feared when the legislation was passed in 1996 and might even be beneficial to teenagers’ mental health.

Though the study found that on average no one was helped or harmed by the fact that their mothers went back to work, that does not mean that there were not subgroups where these factors negated one another.

“The positive and negative aspects of going off welfare or getting a job may cancel each other out,” Chase-Lansdale said. She explained that when mothers of preschoolers went to work, for example, family income increased and the time mothers spent with their children decreased, effectively offsetting one another.

But for adolescents the researchers did not find a tradeoff between time and money. While family income increased with employment, mothers did not substantially reduce their time with adolescents.

Evidence from earlier studies seems to show that mothers are able to compensate for time away from children due to employment by cutting down on sleep, leisure, or volunteer activities. Accordingly, time-use data from the Science study suggest that when mothers went to work, they cut back on personal, social, and educational activities that did not involve their children.

Chase-Lansdale presented the findings at the Brookings Institution, a prestigious Washington, D.C. think tank, on April 14. Policymakers, advocates, and congressional staff attended the briefing, including Wade Horn, the Assistant Secretary for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Comments from the audience brought up an important point on why this research was conducted in the first place: “The focus on welfare reform should not blind us to the fact that these mothers and their children are still living in poverty,” she said. “Even though our findings seem to show no harm, we still have more to do to improve the lives of these children and their parents.”

In addition to Chase-Lansdale, the study’s co-investigators include Brenda J. Lohman and Elizabeth Votruba-Drzal of Northwestern; Robert A. Moffitt, Andrew J. Cherlin, and Jennifer Roff of Johns Hopkins University; Rebekah Levine Coley of Boston College; and Laura D. Pittman of Northern Illinois University. The study’s funding was provided by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, five other federal agencies, and 14 private foundations.

For more information on the Three-City Study, please visit www.northwestern.edu/ipr/research/childdev.html.