Douglas A. Wolf

Married women's allocation of time to employment and care of elderly parents

Married women, who have been shown in past research to exhibit relatively elastic labor supply, constitute a group of particular interest with respect to decisions concerning time spent in parental care and time spent in market work. This paper presents estimates of a simultaneousequations model of employment, hours of work and the provision of care to an older parent. The results provide no evidence of reduced propensities to be employed, or of reduced conditional hours of work, due to the provision of parent care. These findings are consistent with other research on womens allocation of time to competing productive uses.

Household Composition Choices of Older Unmarried Women

This article extends previous research on the household composition of older unmarried women, using a statistical model that treats each of a woman’s surviving children as a distinct potential provider of a shared household. Additional possibilities— living alone, living with other nuclear-family relatives, and living with others— are also recognized, providing a varied range of household-structure opportunities for older women. The approach allows us to identify individual child attributes associated with the propensity to coreside with the older unmarried mother. The results confirm earlier findings regarding the importance of income, age, and disability status as determinants of the household composition of older women. We find, however, that unmarried children, especially sons, are more likely to share a household with an elderly mother than are married children. Working reduces the likelihood that a married daughter will live with her older mother. Overall, the findings suggest that the attributes, more so than the sheer numbers, of living children influence the household structure of their mothers.

The Duration of Welfare Spells

Probability distributions for the duration of welfare spells are estimated. The principle guiding the work is that a recipient will not exit from welfare if the expected utility on welfare exceeds the expected utility of welfare. The analysis indicates that while the majority of welfare spells are of short duration, a nontrivial minority of spells are quite long. Those recipients with long spells are found to differ in predictable ways from those experiencing brief spells. This suggests that strategies to move women off welfare are unnecessary in many cases, and should be targeted on those most likely to be long-term recipients. Copyright 1987 by MIT Press.

Child care subsidies and the employment of welfare recipients

Changing patterns of maternal employment, coupled with stronger work requirements for welfare recipients, are increasing the demand for child care. For many families, the cost of child care creates a financial burden; for mothers with low incomes and those who are former welfare recipients, these costs may be an insurmountable barrier to employment or economic self-sufficiency. Despite increased public spending in this area, the receipt of any child care subsidy appears to be a relatively rare and uncertain event. In this study, we use data from a sample of low-income single mothers (current and recent welfare recipients in California) to estimate the probability of their receiving child care subsidies and the effect of this probability on labor market activity.

Effective Tax Rates and Guarantees in the AFDC Program, 1967-1982

Estimates of effective tax rates on earned and unearned income and estimates of effective guarantees in the AFDC program by state are provided for the period 1967-1982. The results indicate that effective real guarantees fell every year from 1967 to 1981 but stabilized in 1982. Effective tax rates on unearned income rose steadily from 1967 to 1981 and took a particularly large additional jump in 1982. Effective tax rates on earned income fell after 1967, but then gradually rose throughout the 1970s until 1982, when they took a much larger jump. Thus, guarantees fell and tax rates rose over the 1970s as tight budgets forced states to restrict benefits, and in the early 1980s tax rates were pushed even higher by federal legislation.

Kin availability and the living arrangements of older women

This paper models the distribution of older women across household types, taking account of variations in the availability of kin, as well as other explanatory variables such as income and race. Household types are distinguished by the presence or absence in the household of siblings, parents, children, or others, including unrelated individuals. A modified multinomial logit model is used to represent the simultaneous effects of kin availability and other variables on the probability of living in each household type. The results indicate that while income is related to the propensity to live alone, the relationship appears to operate solely through the effect of income upon the propensity to share a household with close relatives. Older black women are shown to be more likely to live in extended-family households, holding constant both income and the availability of kin.

Validation of New Measures of Disability and Functioning in the National Health and Aging Trends Study

BACKGROUND Measurement gaps continue to hamper fuller understanding of late-life disability trends and dynamics. This article reports findings that validate the self-reported components of the disability protocol to be used in the new National Health and Aging Trends Study. The protocol was designed to redress existing measures by attending to environmental aspects of disability, capturing a broader range of capacity to perform tasks and including participation restriction items. METHODS We undertook an in-person validation study to determine the reliability, validity, and initial measurement properties of the National Health and Aging Trends Study self-reported disability protocol (n = 326). A random subset (n = 111) was readministered the protocol within 2-4 weeks. The interview and reinterview included new self-reported measures of physical capacity, activity limitations, and participation restrictions, as well as established performance and cognitive tests. We calculated percent agreement and kappa between interviews for all self-reported items and summary measures. We also assessed the construct validity of summary measures through correlations with demographic characteristics, frailty, memory, and performance-based mobility and confirmed whether activity limitations and participation restrictions were distinct domains. RESULTS New items and derived summary measures demonstrate robustness over a short time period, with kappas for retained/recommended items in the .60-.80 range. The summary measures correlate as expected with age, sex, residential status, and established performance-based constructs. Two factors, representing activity limitations and participation restrictions, were confirmed. CONCLUSIONS The National Health and Aging Trends Study protocol preserves the ability to examine more traditional measures of functioning while offering new insights into how activities are performed and preserving key conceptual distinctions.

Household patterns of older women: some international comparisons.

Comparative analyses based on aggregate data have shown that the percentage of older women living alone has risen dramatically during recent decades, a pattern repeated in many European and North American countries. This article investigates the correlates of the decision to live alone, using individual-level data from five countries and a parallel analytic approach. The major categories of factors analyzed here are kin availability, financial resources, and disability and health status. Several common patterns of findings emerge for the group of countries considered: Larger kin networks and the presence of severe disabilities reduce the probability of living alone, whereas higher income increases the probability of living alone. Despite these similarities in individual-level correlates, there remain some differences across countries in the levels of single-person households, and these might be attributable to macrolevel forces such as housing and social welfare policies.

Nursing home entry in Germany and the United States

This paper investigates the transition into a nursinghome in old age, using recent panel survey data fromGermany and the United States. Among the questionsaddressed are: what is the incidence of nursing homeentry, and how does it vary by age and sex; and towhat extent are differentials in nursing home entryattributable to variations in family composition?Although the percentage of older persons living innursing homes is similar in these two countries, theage-specific rates of movement into them appear to bemuch lower in Germany than in the USA, possibly dueto the effects of public policies. The correlates ofnursing home entry appear to be similar acrosscountries as well, although data limitations limit ourability to make definitive comparisons.

Behavioral Adaptation and Late-Life Disability: A New Spectrum for Assessing Public Health Impacts

OBJECTIVES To inform public health efforts to promote independent functioning among older adults, we have provided new national estimates of late-life disability that explicitly recognize behavioral adaptations. METHODS We analyzed the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study, a study of Medicare enrollees aged 65 years and older (n = 8077). For 7 mobility and self-care activities we identified 5 hierarchical stages--fully able, successful accommodation with devices, activity reduction, difficulty despite accommodations, and receipt of help--and explored disparities and associations with quality of life measures. RESULTS Among older adults, 31% were fully able to complete self-care and mobility activities. The remaining groups successfully accommodated with devices (25%), reduced their activities (6%), reported difficulty despite accommodations (18%), or received help (21%). With successive stages, physical and cognitive capacity decreased and symptoms and multimorbidity increased. Successful accommodation was associated with maintaining participation in valued activities and high well-being, but substantial disparities by race, ethnicity, and income existed. CONCLUSIONS Increased public health attention to behavioral adaptations to functional change can promote independence for older adults and may enhance quality of life.