High Labor Force Attachment, but Few Social Ties? Characteristics of Women Who Receive Childcare Subsidies

• In Event: 1549 - The Reach and Consequences of Social Welfare Policy

Abstract

The U.S. federal Child Care and Development Fund (CCDF) childcare subsidy represents the largest source of means-tested assistance for U.S. low-income families. The CCDF subsidy aims to help low-income mothers gain employment and education, with implications for women’s work trajectories, and the wellbeing of their children. Because recipients of the CCDF subsidy are either already employed, or seek the subsidy with the goal of gaining employment or schooling, this group may be among the public assistance recipients who are best able to succeed in the low-wage labor market. However, the population of women who receive the CCDF subsidy is little-researched. Moreover, existing research on the CCDF observes recipients only after they begin receiving the subsidy, thus confounding the effects of the subsidy itself with women’s characteristics prior to receipt. My study links administrative records from the CCDF to the American Community Survey (ACS) to construct a national-level longitudinal data set that observes CCDF women in the 1-2 years before they first received the subsidy. I compare women who subsequently received the CCDF subsidy to other low-income women in the ACS who did not go on to receive the subsidy, with a total of 1,286,441 observations. I find that CCDF women are generally positively selected on employment history and school enrollment, but have lower social support and less-stable housing than non-recipients. My study contributes to efforts to understand the role of public assistance benefits in low-income women’s work and family trajectories.

Author

• Rachel M. Shattuck, U.S. Census Bureau