Welfare and the Well-Being of Children

在美国，向非老年、非残疾贫困人口转移项目的一个主要目标是改善贫困家庭儿童的福祉。过去，对这些福利项目的研究大多集中在这些项目对父母的激励作用上，而不是父母参与这些项目是否对孩子有明显的好处。鉴于在这些转移项目上花费了大量资金，有必要对家长参与对孩子的直接影响进行评估。该项目将研究母亲参加AFDC、食品券计划和公共住房与儿童福利的各种衡量标准之间的关系。这些措施将包括孩子的出生体重、生长、健康以及心理和认知测试分数。这项研究将利用现有的一套新数据，该数据集将母亲的福利参与与其子女福利的这些措施联系起来：全国青年合并儿童-母亲纵向调查档案。

A primary goal of transfer programs to the non-aged, non-disabled poor in the U.S. is to improve the well-being of children in poor families. In the past, most of the research which has been devoted to the study of these welfare programs focuses on the incentive effects of the programs for parents rather than on the question of whether the parents' participation in such programs measurably benefits children. Given the large amounts spent on these transfer programs, an assessment of the direct effects of parental participation on children is called for. This project will examine the relationship between a mother's participation in AFDC, the Food Stamp Program, and public housing, and various measures of her child's well-being. These measures will include the child's birth weight, growth, health, and psychological and cognitive test scores. The study will take advantage of the availability of a new data set which links a mother's welfare participation to these measures of her child's well-being: the National Longitudinal survey of Youth Merged Child-Mother File.