Deborah Roempke Graefe

Life course transitions of American children: Parental cohabitation, marriage, and single motherhood

We examine the life course transitions into and from families headed by unmarried cohabiting couples for a recent cohort of American children. Life table estimates, based on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth mother-child files, indicate about one in four children will live in a family headed by a cohabiting couple sometime during childhood. Economic uncertainty is an important factor determining whether children in single-parent families subsequently share a residence with a mother’s unmarried partner. Moreover, virtually all children in cohabiting-couple families will experience rapid subsequent changes in family status. Our estimates provide a point of departure for future work on children’s exposure to parental cohabitation and its social and economic implications.

Marriage among unwed mothers: whites, blacks and Hispanics compared.

CONTEXT Much of the debate over welfare reauthorization centers on whether marriage promotion should play a key role. Few studies, however, have tracked the marriage and divorce histories of unwed mothers, including minority women, who are often the main targets of welfare reform. METHODS Data from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth were used to estimate the hazards of the transition to marriage for women who delayed childbearing until marriage and for teenagers and older women who had a nonmarital first birth, and of the transition to divorce among the ever-married. Life-table estimates calculated with these estimated transition hazards show the cumulative proportions married and divorced, by race and ethnicity, for women who had a nonmarital first birth and for those who did not. RESULTS Nonmarital childbearing reduces the likelihood of marriage. Some 82% of white women, 62% of Hispanics and 59% of blacks who had a nonmarital first birth had married by age 40; the corresponding proportions among those who avoided nonmarital childbearing were 89%, 93% and 76%, respectively. There is no evidence to suggest that the negative effect of nonmarital childbearing on marriage is caused by other observed or unobserved differences between unwed mothers and women who remain childless until marriage. Nonmarital childbearing raises the likelihood of divorce among unwed mothers who eventually marry, a finding that also varies by race and ethnicity. CONCLUSIONS Marriage promotion policies should focus on lowering rates of nonmarital childbearing. Reductions in nonmarital childbearing, however, may not eliminate long-standing discrepancies in marriage rates between black and white women.

When Unwed Mothers Marry The Marital and Cohabiting Partners of Midlife Women

The promotion of marriage and two-parent families as a strategy to reduce welfare dependency continues to be a major public policy goal of the 1996 welfare reform. Based on the assumption that women will marry employed men and that their earnings will lift poor mothers and their children from public dependency, this objective raises important policy questions. In this article, the authors investigate the extent to which unwed mothers—a large proportion of all welfare mothers—enter into and maintain stable cohabiting and marital relationships with economically attractive men. Using retrospective data on relationship histories for 3,872 women from the 1995 National Survey of Family Growth, the authors examine the marital life course of unwed mothers and document the social and economic characteristics of their partners at midlife. Their marital search model shows that nonmarital childbearing is adversely associated with the ability to marry economically attractive men and maintain long-term marital unions.

Immigrants’ TANF Eligibility, 1996–2003: What Explains the New Across-State Inequalities?1

Why did some states adopt stringent TANF-eligibility policies toward immigrants, while others implemented more lenient rules throughout the post-1996 welfare reform period? We use immigrant-specific welfare rule measures to examine predominant theoretical frameworks for understanding state stringency in welfare policy. Analysis, utilizing a simultaneous equations modeling (SEM) strategy, uses annual data for all states. Results show consistent support for the median voter (primarily, the percent of liberal voters) theoretical explanation for less stringent state welfare eligibility rules regarding immigrants. While the size of the Social-Security-recipient population (tax capacity indicator) and perhaps unacceptable reproductive behavior (teen birth rate) relate to more stringent rules, key state economic and fiscal characteristics (i.e., per capita welfare expenditures, per capita personal income) explain less stringent TANF eligibility rules. Importantly recent immigrant population concentration patterns (in new and traditional destination states) add to the theoretical explanation of less stringent state TANF immigrant eligibility policies.

Welfare reform and interstate migration of poor families.

The thesis of this study is that as a result of increased inequalities in welfare rules, the 1996 welfare reform act not only enhanced incentives for poor families to move but also (and perhaps more important) created disincentives for them to stay in “race to the bottom” states. In testing this thesis, we evaluated the mediating and moderating roles of state economic development and family structure. We merged data from three main sources: the 1996–1999 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the Urban Institute’s Welfare Rules Database, and state economic data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Modeling both destination (pull) and departure (push) effects of welfare policy measures and selected covariates in a nested discrete-time event-history migration analysis, we found robust support for the thesis that stringency in state welfare-eligibility and behavior-related rules stimulated interstate out-migration of poor families in the United States. However, poor families were not drawn to states with relatively more-lenient welfare rules, although stringency in state welfare dollar benefits inhibited in-migration and state unemployment patterns may have conditioned the migration effects of welfare-reform rules on the choice of destination. Single mothers were not more directly affected by welfare-eligibility and behavior-related rules than were poor married couples.

Men and Marriage Promotion: Who Marries Unwed Mothers?

This study expands upon current debates about marriage promotion by refocusing attention on men. The 2002 National Survey of Family Growth provides the first comprehensive data on detailed fertility and marital histories for men of reproductive age. These data are used to address the straightforward but neglected question of who typically marries unwed mothers. Analyses show that over 80 percent of men will marry by midlife but that men’s prior fertility, marital, and economic histories are critically linked to when and with whom they eventually form married families. Unwed fathers and those with few economic resources are more likely than other men to marry unwed mothers. The study provides a point of departure for understanding men’s marriages to low‐income, unwed mothers and for identifying a major barrier to policies that encourage marriage among the poor.

New estimates of gaps and transitions in health insurance.

Changes in individual or family circumstances cause many Americans to experience gaps and transitions in public and private health insurance. Using data from the 2004-2007 Survey of Income and Program Participation, this article updates earlier analyses of insurance gaps and transitions. Eighty-nine million people (one third of nonelderly Americans) were uninsured for at least 1 month during those 4 years. Approximately 23 million lost insurance more than once. The analyses call attention to the continuing instability and insecurity of health insurance, can inform implementation of national reforms, and establish a recent baseline that will be helpful in evaluating the reforms’ effects on coverage stability.

Reducing Medicaid Churning: Extending Eligibility For Twelve Months Or To End Of Calendar Year Is Most Effective

Medicaid churning--the constant exit and reentry of beneficiaries as their eligibility changes--has long been a problem for both Medicaid administrators and recipients. Churning will continue under the Affordable Care Act because, despite new federal rules, Medicaid eligibility will continue to be based on current monthly income. We developed a longitudinal simulation model to evaluate four policy options for modifying or extending Medicaid eligibility to reduce churning. The simulations suggest that two options--extending eligibility either to the end of a calendar year or for twelve months after enrollment--would be the most effective methods for reducing churning. The other options--a three-month extension or eligibility based on projected annual income--would reduce churning to a lesser extent. States should consider implementation of the option that best balances costs while improving access to coverage and, thereby, the health of Medicaid enrollees.

Hispanic-Asian Immigrant Inequality in Perceived Medical Need and Access to Regular Physician Care

In the face of continuing large immigrant streams, Hispanic and Asian immigrants’ human and social capital inequalities will heighten U.S. race/ethnic health and health care disparities. Using data from the 2004 and 2008 panels of the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study assessed Hispanic-Asian immigrant disparity in access to health care, measured by perceived medical need and regular access to a physician. Logistic regression results indicated that Hispanics had lower perceived met medical need and were less likely to see a doctor regularly. These disparities were significantly attenuated by education and health insurance. Assimilation-related characteristics were significantly associated with a regular doctor visit and were not fully mediated by socioeconomic variables. Findings indicate the importance of education above and beyond insurance coverage for access to health care and suggest the potential for public health efforts to improve preventive care among immigrants.

Immigrants, Place, and Health: Destination Area Health Contexts and Routine Physician and Dental Care for Children of Mexican Immigrants

Notable healthcare disparities are shown among the children of Mexican immigrants across different Hispanic immigrant destinations. A hostile local immigrant-receptivity climate and alternative institutional community context indicators are integrated with individual-level data on physician and dental care from the 1996 and 2001 Survey of Income and Program Participation to explain this variation. Mexican immigrants’ children in new Hispanic immigrant destinations are 20 percent less likely to see a doctor, and a negative receptivity climate explains about half of this effect. Community health clinic availability and greater state leniency toward immigrant child public health insurance eligibility facilitate healthcare access.