Welfare Reform: What about the Children? : Welfare, Children & Families: A Three-City Study. Policy Brief / P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Rebekah Levine Coley and Brenda J. Lohman.

This policy brief describes children from "Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City Study," using data from the first wave of the study which involved a random-sample survey of about 2,400 low-income children and their caregivers (mainly mothers) in low-income neighborhoods. Researchers collected information from mothers on their employment, income, family structure, welfare participation, mental health, and parenting. They also collected various measures of social development, problem behavior, and school performance for the children. Analyses of 1,885 low-income preschoolers and adolescents found that preschoolers and adolescents were more developmentally at risk than middle-class children in national samples. Adolescents whose mothers were on welfare in 1999 had lower levels of cognitive achievement and higher levels of behavioral and emotional problems than did adolescents whose mothers had left, or never been on, welfare. For preschoolers, mothers' current or recent welfare participation related to poor cognitive achievement. Preschoolers of the most recent welfare leavers had the most elevated levels of problem behavior. Preschoolers and adolescents in sanctioned families showed problematic cognitive and behavioral outcomes. Mothers' marital, education, mental health, and physical health status and parenting practices accounted for most of the welfare group differences. (SM)

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