State Safety Nets and Parental Well-Being

• In Event: Sociology of Population Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 7. Inequality and Policy

Abstract

Parents in the United States report poorer well-being compared to parents in other wealthy countries, in part due to weak public safety nets. Although cross-national studies link more generous support with better outcomes, less is known about whether within-country variation in state safety nets shapes parental well-being in the United States. We merge nationally representative individual-level survey data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (2011-2022, n= 947,582) with state-level measures of safety net generosity from the Brookings Institute to evaluate whether state safety nets are linked with parental well-being among mothers and fathers. Logistic regression models with state and year fixed effects indicate that a $1,000 increase in simulated annual benefits is associated with a 7–8% reduction in the odds of fair/poor health among low-income mothers. Effects are smaller and less consistent for fathers and show little variation by marital status. Our results underscore the importance of state institutional contexts for parental well-being.

Authors

• Jessica Houston Su, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Kelly Musick, Cornell University

• Hyo Joo Lee, Cornell University