The purpose of [the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families Program] is to increase the flexibility of States to prevent and reduce the incidence of out-of-wedlock pregnancies and encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families.
Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996
Welfare Reform and Family Formation is a collaborative research project examining the impacts of welfare reforms on marriage, childbearing, and related attitudes and behaviors. The project represents the most systematic and rigorous investigation of this subject to date. Principal analyses will utilize a round of surveys conducted for random assignment welfare reform evaluations in Delaware, Florida, Indiana, and Minnesota.
The underlying conceptual framework represents welfare reforms as potentially influencing family formation through changes in intervening outcomes like employment, welfare benefits, family income, attitudes, sexual activity, and contraceptive use. Project analyses will highlight differences across different subgroups of adult recipients and their teen children.
Welfare Reform and Family Formation will provide a series of research bulletins, technical papers, and a final report. The first two bulletins are addressing the following topics:
This project is a joint effort involving researchers at Abt Associates Inc. and the University of California (Berkeley and Santa Cruz). The Annie E. Casey and Smith Richardson Foundations are providing funding.
Related work by project researchers includes the following reports:
