Moehling, Carolyn M. 2007. “The American Welfare System and Family Structure: An Historical Perspective.” Journal of Human Resources 42(1): 117–155.
Cross-sectional studies find a positive relationship between a state’s welfare benefits and single motherhood. But is this evidence of a “welfare effect” or rather of cross state differences in social attitudes that influence both policy and behavior? This paper demonstrates that the spatial variation in welfare policy long preceded the spatial correlation of policy and behavior, undermining the social norm hypothesis. But the findings also raise doubts about the role that welfare policy played in the changes in family structure over the century. The correlation between welfare benefits and family structure only appears in 1970, and then only for whites.
Carolyn M. Moehling is an associate professor of economics at Rutgers University. The author thanks Joseph Altonji, Timothy Guinnane, Caroline Hoxby, T. Paul Schultz, Christopher Udry, and Ebonya Washington and seminar participants at Lehigh University, Rutgers University, the University of Missouri, and Williams College for helpful comments and suggestions. The author takes all responsibility for errors and omissions. The data used in this article can be obtained beginning August 2007 through July 2010 from Carolyn Moehling, Department of Economics, Rutgers University, 75 Hamilton Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, cmoehling@econ.rutgers.edu.