The Effect of Welfare Payments on the Marriage and Fertility Behavior of Unwed Mothers: Results from a Twins Experiment

作者：Jeff Grogger, Stephen G. Bronars · 发表于：Journal of Political Economy · 年份：2001 · DOI：10.1086/321016 · 被引用次数：90 · 研究领域：Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics、Family Dynamics and Relationships、Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences

We study the relationship between welfare benefits and the time to first marriage and time to next birth among initially unwed mothers. We use twin births to generate random within‐state variation in benefits, effectively controlling for unobservables that may confound the relationship between welfare payments and behavior. Higher base welfare benefits (1) lead unwed white mothers to forestall their eventual marriage and (2) lead unwed black mothers to hasten their next birth. The magnitudes of these effects are fairly modest. Moreover, we find no evidence that the marginal benefit paid at the birth of an additional child—the focus of the family cap debate—affects fertility.