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Project Description

This project examines barriers to employment among welfare mothers in a four-wave panel study of 753 current and former welfare recipient families in an urban county in Michigan. In-person interviews are conducted on a comprehensive set of barriers to employment, such as schooling, work experience, work readiness, job skills and credentials, experiences of employment discrimination and harassment, physical and mental health status, alcohol and drug use, family stresses including child well-being, experiences of domestic violence, and experiences in welfare-to work services and training programs. Questions such as the extent and prevalence of multiple barriers to work and co-morbidity among barriers, which barriers or combinations reduce wage growth, how barriers change as work and welfare status changes, and how barriers and welfare-to-work program participation are related, are examined. This panel study, referred to as the Women's Employment Study (WES), is to identify the key factors that enable welfare recipients to remain employed and enable social service providers to better assess client needs and design targeted short term and long term service program components.

Project duration: Sep 1997 - Aug 2003

Sites studied include 1 Michigan metropolitan area

Sample Characteristics and Sites Studied

Random sample of 753 single welfare mothers who live in a Michigan metropolitan area. To be eligible for sample, women had to be white (non-Hispanic) or African-American, US citizens, and not classified as exempt from work requirements.
Data collected Fall 1997.

In waves two and three, 12 months and 24 months later (Fall 1998 and Fall 1999), extensive data was collected on recipients’ employment experiences and on their experiences with Michigan’s work-oriented welfare system between waves one and two (two and three), all the baseline information on potential barriers to employment and family functioning was re-measured.

Recent Findings in Brief

05/01/02: Women's Employment Study: Maternal Work Behavior Under Welfare Reform: How Does the Transition from Welfare to Work Affect Child Development?

Interim Impact Findings:

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