Volume 35, Number 1 (Winter) 2000
Blackburn, McKinley L.. 2000. "Welfare Effects on the Marital Decisions of never-Married Mothers." Journal of Human Resources 35(1):116-142.
The economic theory of marriage suggests that more generous welfare benefits should serve to reduce the probability of marriage among m others who have given birth out of wedlock. This relation ship is explored using data on never-married mothers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. Only very limited evidence indicates that higher welfare payments lower the probability of marriage for nonblack never-married mothers. For black never-married mothers, the results suggest that higher benefits are associated with higher marriage rates.
McKinley L. Blackburn is a professor of economics at the University of South Carolina. He would like to thank John Ermisch, Stephen Jenkins, Melayne McInnes, and Madeline Zavodny for helpful comments. He would also like to thank Saul Hoffman and Robert Moffitt for providing their data on AFDC and food stamp benefits, and Francisco Veiga for excellent research assistance. The data used in this article were obtained from Three National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
© 2002 by the Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
US ISSN 0022-166X