The fourth goal of PRWORA emphasizes provisions to promote marriage, reduce out-of-wedlock childbearing, and encourage parental responsibility for their children. The law requires teenage welfare recipients to attend school and live with their parents or other responsible adults. PRWORA also allows states to institute a "family cap" that denies additional benefits to families in which more children were born while the families were receiving assistance. States that succeed in reducing non-marital births will receive monetary bonuses.

Recent census reports indicate that out-of-wedlock births among teens are declining. However, few studies show evidence that directly link the various policies contained in the 1996 legislation to these reductions. Thus, there is still little research on the specific policies (such as child support enforcement or family caps) that could maintain or deepen these trends.

Additional Resources on Child/Family Policy

Selected Summary Findings in Brief

New Chance (MDRC):

• New Chance offered assistance to teenage mothers in acquiring educational and vocational credentials and skills intended to lead to increased employment and decreased welfare dependency. The evaluation found that, by the 3�-year point, the cumulative pregnancy rates of the two groups did not differ significantly, nor did the cumulative rates of abortions and live births.

Teenage Parent Demonstration Program (Mathematica):

• Welfare policies and programs did not substantially reduce subsequent pregnancies and births.

Prenatal and Infancy Home Visitation by Nurses (University of Colorado):

• An evaluation of the Elmira demonstration using randomized treatment and comparison groups (n=184 for the comparison group, 116 for the treatment group) found a large (43 percent) and statistically significant reduction in subsequent pregnancies among the poor, unmarried women in the sample at 46 months postpartum, and delay of the birth of a second child by an average of 12 months longer (Olds 1988) No effects on family formation were reported. A fifteen-year followup found that many of the positive effects of the initial evaluation were sustained (Olds 1997).
• Memphis: The comparable effects at the 54 month post-partum month were statistically significant but considerably smaller than the Elmira effects.

New Jersey's Family Development Program (Rutgers):

• An initial evaluation using a quasi-experimental design revealed significant effects of the marriage cap on subsequent fertility, leading to much media attention and controversy. New Jersey commissioned another quasi experimental study by a team from Rutgers, completed in 1998. The findings for ongoing cases were that members of the experimental group experienced a birth rate that was about nine percent lower than the control group birth rate, used family planning services about ten percent more often than the control group had about 28 percent more sterilizations than the control group.
• For new cases, members of the experimental group experienced a birth rate that was twelve percent lower than the control group birth rate, had an abortion rate that was 14 percent higher than the control group abortion rate; and used contraceptive drugs and devices 21 percent more often than the control group. There were no statistically significant differences family planning use or sterilization.