Welfare Recipients' Attitudes toward Nonmarital Childbearing and Marriage

David J. Fein, Abt Associates Inc.
Rebecca London, University of California at Santa Cruz
Jane Mauldon, University of California at Berkeley

The PRWORA welfare reforms of 1996 included the goals of preventing nonmarital births and encouraging two parent families. Success in meeting these goals depends upon whether TANF recipients incorporate these objectives into their own intentions and behaviors. As the first in a series of products from the Welfare Reform and Family Formation Project, this study investigates the attitudes and expectations for childbearing and marriage held by welfare recipients, focusing on: 1) Variations across subgroups of welfare recipients; 2) Inter-relationships between attitudes toward marriage and childbearing; and 3) Changes over time with exposure to welfare reform. We will address these questions using survey data from three state welfare reform experiments. The three surveys - of teen parents in California and adult single parents in Delaware and Indiana - provide some of the most detailed data on this subject currently available for a large population with direct exposure to welfare reform policies.