TY  - JOUR
AU  - Joyce,Theodore
AU  - Kaestner,Robert
AU  - Korenman,Sanders
TI  - Welfare Reform and Non-Marital Fertility in the 1990s: Evidence from Birth Records
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 9406
PY  - 2002
Y2  - December 2002
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9406
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w9406.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Theodore J. Joyce
Baruch College & Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Ave, 5th Fl
New York, NY 10016-4309
Tel: 212/817-7960
Fax: 212/817-1597
E-Mail: theodore.joyce@baruch.cuny.edu

Robert Kaestner
Institute of Government and Public Affairs
University of Illinois
815 West Van Buren Street, Suite 525
Chicago, IL  60607
Tel: 312/996-8227
E-Mail: kaestner.robert@gmail.com

Sanders Korenman
School of Public Affairs
Baruch College
City University of New York
One Bernard Baruch Way
Box D-901
New York, NY 10010
Tel: 646/660-6782
Fax: 646/660-6770
E-Mail: sanders.korenman@baruch.cuny.edu
AB  - The 1996 Personal Responsibility Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act dramatically altered the economic incentive to bear children out-of-wedlock for economically disadvantaged women or couples most likely to avail themselves of welfare programs.  We use data from vital statistics and a difference-in-differences research design to investigate whether state and federal welfare reform in the 1990s reduced rates of non-marital childbearing among women aged 19 to 39 at highest risk of welfare use, relative to women at lower risk.  We find little consistent evidence for an effect of welfare reform on non-marital childbearing.  This finding is similar to the literature that found little or mixed evidence for an effect of AFDC benefits.  If anything, federal welfare reform has been associated with a small positive effect of two to three percent for white and black women ages 19 to 39.
ER  -