Why De-Industrialization Increased AFDC Caseloads: A Comparison of Family Structure and Earnings Effects

美国经济在过去40年里经历了巨大的结构调整。 在整个20世纪50年代，制造业是最大的经济部门，并一直雇用超过三分之一的国家的工人。 到1996年，由于国际竞争和技术变革侵蚀了就业机会，制造业雇用的工人不到全国工人总数的16%。 这些失业往往是永久性的，涉及的低技能男子不成比例，并严重损害了受影响的当地经济。 然而，对低技能妇女及其子女可能产生的影响在很大程度上被忽视了。在拟议的研究中，调查人员考虑了钢铁和煤炭开采行业低技能男性经济机会的下降最终如何影响低技能女性。 这些行业的就业冲击不可能对妇女的收入产生强烈的直接影响，因为在1970年，初级金属制造业只有8%的工人是妇女，煤炭开采业只有不到3%的工人是妇女。 然而，AFDC方案的参与者绝大多数是贫穷的单身妇女及其子女。 这些行业的就业冲击是否改变了妇女对AFDC的参与？ 拟议研究的目的是探讨这一问题，并扩大调查的就业冲击，在制造业更普遍。 根据定义，妇女通过家庭组成的变化或通过收入机会的变化进入和退出AFDC方案。由于这些经济冲击极大地改变了低技能男子的经济前景，它们将影响这些男子作为婚姻伴侣的吸引力。因此，经济繁荣可能会增加男性作为丈夫的吸引力，提高结婚率。这将减少有资格获得AFDC的妇女人数。按照同样的逻辑，经济萧条会降低结婚率，让更多的女性未婚。在某种程度上，这些未婚妇女是穷人和有孩子的，他们中的更多人将面临AFDC的风险。 由于AFDC是一个经济情况调查方案，妇女收入的变化也影响AFDC的参与。 这些对低技能男子就业的巨大冲击很可能产生溢出效应，改变了低技能妇女的收入机会。这在围绕单个制造厂发展的小城镇中尤其如此。1970年，有些县的男性中有高达38%的人从事初级金属工业。这表明，制造业的失业会大大降低对雇用低技能妇女的部门的服务需求。此外，由于失去制造业工作而被取代的男子可能会竞争以前由妇女担任的工作。 该项目审查了对男性主导行业的大规模、永久性冲击影响妇女参与AFDC的机制。由于这些就业冲击，妇女是否更有可能非婚生子女，更不可能结婚并保持婚姻？还是溢出效应降低了低技能妇女的就业和收入前景？ 该项目使用了关于工厂关闭的地点和时间的机密数据，以及关于县一级按人口群体分列的就业、收入、婚姻和生育率变化的机密数据。这些数据使研究人员能够以以前不可能的方式调查制造业就业机会破坏对当地社区的影响。

The U.S. economy has undergone tremendous restructuring over the last 40 years. Throughout the 1950s, manufacturing was the largest sector of the economy and consistently employed more than one-third of the nation's workers. By 1996, the manufacturing sector employed less than 16% of all workers in the country, as international competition and technological change eroded job opportunities. These job losses have tended to be permanent, to involve low-skilled men disproportionately, and to severely hurt the local economies affected. However, the possible effects on low-skilled women and their children have been largely ignored. In the proposed research, the investigators consider how the decline in economic opportunities for low-skilled men in the steel and coal mining industries ultimately affected low-skilled women. The employment shocks in these industries could not have had strong direct effects on the earnings of women as only 8% of workers in primary metal manufacturing were women and less than 3% of workers in coal mining were women in 1970. However, participants in the AFDC program are overwhelmingly poor, single women and their children. Did employment shocks to these industries alter women's AFDC participation? The objective of the proposed research is to explore this question and expand the investigation to employment shocks in manufacturing more generally. By definition, women enter and exit the AFDC program either through changes in family composition or through changes in earnings opportunities. Since these economic shocks substantially altered the economic prospects of low-skilled men, they would have affected the attractiveness of these men as marriage partners. Therefore, an economic boom would presumably increase men's attractiveness as husbands and increase marriage rates. This would reduce the number of women eligible for AFDC. An economic bust would, by the same logic, decrease marriage rates, leaving more women unmarried. To the extent that these unmarried women are poor and have children, more of them would be at risk for AFDC. Because AFDC is a means-tested program, changes in women's earnings also affect AFDC participation. It is very likely that these large shocks to employment of low-skilled men created a spillover effect that changed the earnings opportunities of low-skilled women. This is particularly true in the small towns that developed around single manufacturing plants. In 1970, there were counties with as up to 38% of their men employed in the primary metal industry. This suggests that job losses in manufacturing would have substantially lowered the demand for services from sectors employing low-skilled women. In addition, the men that were displaced by the loss of manufacturing jobs would presumably have then competed for jobs previously held by women. This project examines the mechanisms by which large, permanent shocks to male-dominated industries affected women's AFDC participation. As a result of these employment shocks did women become more likely to bear children out-of-wedlock and less likely to become and remain married? Or did the spillover effects lower the employment and earnings prospects of low-skilled women? The project uses confidential data on the location and timing of plant closings, and on changes in employment, earnings, marriage and fertility by demographic group at the county level. These data enable the researchers to investigate the impact of manufacturing job destruction on the local community in ways that were previously impossible.