The Relationship between Welfare Benefit Levels and Premarital Childbearing in Context: The Role of Structural and Normative Factors

这是一项关于福利水平和婚前生育的研究。它考察了福利水平和婚前生育之间的关系在多大程度上取决于社会和经济背景。背景被定义为包括规范的环境(与非婚生育有关的耻辱、与领取福利有关的耻辱、社区中的积极榜样)；避孕和堕胎对年轻妇女的选择程度(可获得性、可接受性和可负担性)；以及经济机会(通过父母、潜在丈夫和就业)。到目前为止，研究人员一直隐含地假设福利福利和婚前生育之间的关系在不同的背景下是恒定的。目前的研究考察了三类背景因素，它们可能影响福利水平对婚前生育的影响。这些假设使用了来自两个来源的纵向数据：收入动态小组研究和全国青年纵向调查。这些数据补充了综合社会调查、当前人口调查和十年一度人口普查的背景信息。这项研究将提高我们对社会政策与文化和经济力量相互作用以改变当代社会家庭结构的方式的理解。它还将增加我们对经济激励如何影响年轻女性生育和婚姻决定的理解。

This is a study of welfare benefit levels and premarital childbearing. It examines the extent to which the relationship between welfare benefit levels and premarital childbearing depends upon social and economic context. Contexts are defined to include normative climate (stigma associated with nonmarital childbearing, stigma associated with welfare receipt, positive role models in the community); the extent to which contraception and abortion are options for young women (availability, acceptability, and affordability); and economic opporotunties (through parents, potential husbands and employment). To date, researchers have implicitly assumed that the relationship between welfare benefits and premarital childbearing is constant across contexts. The current study examines three categories of contextual factors that may condition the effect of welfare benefit levels on premarital childbearing. The hypotheses are tested using longitudinal data from two sources: the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. These data are supplemented with information on context from the General Social Surveys, the Current Population Surveys, and the decennial Censuses.This study will improve our understanding of ways in which social policy interacts with cultural and economic forces to alter the structure of the family in contemporary societies. It will also increase our understanding of the ways in which economic incentives influence young women's decisions about childbearing and marriage.