Report on Results of Long-Term Follow-up, Executive Summary
Moving into Adulthood:
Were the Impacts of Mandatory Programs for Welfare-Dependent Teenaged
Parents Sustained After the Programs Ended?
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February 1998
by Ellen Eliason Kisker, Anu Rangarajan, and Kimberly Boller
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Overview of Teenage Parent Demonstration
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Target Population
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Evaluation Design
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Early Findings
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Longer-Term Self-sufficiency
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Subsequent Fertility
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Child Development
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Implications
Title Page of Report
Acknowledgements
References and Project Reports
How to obtain full report
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Because teenage childbearing often has negative consequences for the parents,
their children, and society, policymakers have been searching for effective
strategies not only for reducing teenage pregnancies but also for improving
the life chances of teenagers who have children. In 1986, the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the Teenage Parent
Demonstration (TPD) to test the effectiveness of innovative programs for
improving the economic self-sufficiency of teenage parents dependent on
welfare. The public welfare agencies in Illinois and New Jersey were
awarded grants to design and implement the TPD programs. The Illinois
program, Project Advance, operated in the south side of Chicago, and the
New Jersey program, Teen Progress, operated in Newark and Camden. The
programs began serving young mothers in mid-1987 and continued operations
through mid-1991.
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Anticipating the mandatory participation requirements of the 1988 Family
Support Act, the demonstration programs required teenage mothers
on welfare for the first time with their child to participate in education,
job training, or employment-related activities. To help them meet this
requirement, the programs offered support services -- mainly case management,
child care assistance, and transportation assistance. Unlike previous
programs, the TPD programs required mothers to participate in activities
regardless of the age of their child, to receive the maximum welfare grant.
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The target population for the demonstration included all teenagers in the
demonstration sites who, for the first time, were parents and were
receiving Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) (either as the head
of their own cases or as "minor" mothers) or (in Illinois only) had no children
but were in the third trimester of a pregnancy and were receiving AFDC.
During the demonstration period, almost 6,000 teenage mothers joined the
welfare rolls in the three demonstration sites, and nearly 90 percent attended
intake and enrolled in the demonstration. Half of those who enrolled
in the demonstration were assigned at random to participate in the programs
(the enhanced-services group); the rest became part of a control group and
received regular AFDC services (the regular-services group).
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Most of the young mothers who enrolled in the demonstration were between
17 and 19 years old, belonged to a minority racial or ethnic group (African
American or Hispanic), and had never been married. Most of the teenagers
who enrolled in the demonstration were parents of an infant under one year
old. Most had educational deficits and weak basic skills that posed
obstacles to eventual self-sufficiency. Only one-third had a high school
diploma or GED, and more than half had reading scores below the eight-grade
level. Just over half had some work experience prior to enrolling in
the program; however, the majority reported facing one or more barriers that
constrained their ability to work, including health problems, limited English
proficiency, child care problems, and transportation needs.
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DHHS contracted with Mathematica Policy Research, Inc. to evaluate the
demonstration programs. The first phase of the evaluation focused on
documenting the implementation and costs of the programs, assessing the service
needs and use of participants (including special studies of child care needs
and use) and examining the impacts of the programs on mothers' prospects
for economic self-sufficiency over the period that the demonstration programs
were still operating. The second phase of the evaluation (the focus
of this report) measured the endurance of program impacts on mothers' prospects
approximately three to four years after the programs ended and participants
returned to their state's regular welfare policies and programs. It
also assessed program impacts on the well-being of the mothers' first-born
children.
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Data for the evaluation were gathered from multiple sources, including program
intake forms, two follow-up surveys, administrative records data, and child
assessments. The second follow-up survey, which is the main source
of data for this report, targeted the full samples of mothers in Camden and
Newark and a random subsample of mothers in Chicago approximately six and
a half years after program intake. Interviews were completed by telephone
or in person with more than 85 percent of the target sample. As soon
as possible after the second follow-up interviews were completed, in-person
child assessment sessions were scheduled with mothers who still lived in
the demonstration areas and had custody of their first-born child and whose
first-born child was between the ages of five and eight. Child assessments,
which included self-administered questionnaires completed by the mothers
while interviewers conducted tests and interviews with their children, were
completed with 78 percent of eligible mothers and children.
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The first phase of the evaluation showed that states can operate
large-scale, mandatory work-oriented programs for teenage parents
(Maynard 1993). The
demonstration programs were generally well implemented and achieved high
rates of initial participation and moderate rates of ongoing
participation. Nearly 90 percent of the young mothers who were identified
as eligible for the programs enrolled, and, of those who enrolled, 92 percent
participated in program activities beyond the initial intake and
assessment. Participants were required to engage in a full-time schedule
(30 hours per week) of education, training, or employment (or some combination
of these and other activities). Case managers were held accountable
for helping the young mothers address their barriers to participation; the
young mothers had to comply or face financial penalties. Both program
staff and the young mothers who were required to participate in these programs
felt that the programs were helpful and that the participation requirements
were fair. Throughout the demonstration period, the programs kept between
30 and 50 percent of the young mothers actively involved in school, job training,
or a job, while others were enrolled in workshops and other activities
preparatory to entering one of these major self-sufficiency-oriented activities.
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The demonstration programs increased rates of school attendance,
job training, and employment but produced few significant differences in
marriage, living arrangements, fertility, or child support during the first
two years following intake. The first phase of the evaluation
showed that overall levels of participation in school, job training, or
employment over the two years following program intake were substantially
higher than they would have been in the absence of the demonstration programs'
supportive services and participation mandates
(Maynard, Nicholson, and Rangarajan
1993). The programs were most effective in increasing school enrollment
levels. The program-induced increases in employment were accompanied
by earnings gains that, combined with program sanctions, resulted in lower
rates of dependence on public assistance. However, except for those
who became employed, the economic welfare of participants did not change.
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For most of the young mothers, the cycle of welfare dependency has
not yet been broken. Approximately 70 percent of the mothers
in both the regular- and enhanced-services groups were still receiving welfare
at the time of the second follow-up survey. At the time of the survey,
six to seven years after program intake, approximately one-fourth of the
mothers in Camden, one-third of those in Newark, and about 40 percent of
those in Chicago were employed. Although marriage or a stable relationship
with a partner offers an alternative route to economic self-sufficiency,
most (90 percent) of the young women in the sample had not taken this route
by the time of the second follow-up survey. Employment was not always
sufficient to lift mothers out of poverty; at the time of the second follow-up
survey, more than three-fourths of the mothers lived in households with incomes
below the poverty level.
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The promising early impacts of the programs on employment-related
activities and welfare dependence faded once the demonstration programs ended
and participants returned to regular AFDC and Job Opportunities and Basic
Skills Training (JOBS) programs. The demonstration programs'
early impacts on participation in employment-related activities (work, training,
or education) faded three to four years after the programs ended.
Similarly, the modest short-term impacts of the demonstration programs on
welfare receipt faded once participants returned to regular AFDC.
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The early impacts of the programs on employment-related activities
and welfare started to erode at about the time sanctions and support services
ended for the enhanced-services group. After the demonstration
programs ended in mid-1991 and mothers in the enhanced-services group no
longer faced activity requirements or received any special services, mothers
in the regular-services group caught up to their counterparts in the
enhanced-services group, and program impacts on employment, earnings, and
educational attainment faded. Moreover, as the earnings impacts eroded
and the program sanctions for noncompliance with program requirements ended,
impacts on welfare receipt and benefit amounts largely disappeared.
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Mothers in both the regular- and the enhanced-services groups reported
receiving very little financial child support. Fewer than
20 percent reported receiving any child support income six to seven years
after enrolling in the demonstration; only about 10 percent reported receiving
regular financial support from the noncustodial father of their first-born
child. Noncustodial fathers were more likely to provide in-kind
support. For instance, nearly one-fourth of the mothers reported that
they currently received any clothing or toys from the father of their first-born
child. Fewer than one-quarter of the mothers in either group reported
that their first-born child had regular contact with his or her
father.(1)
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On average, during the six- to seven-year follow-up period, the young
mothers in both the regular- and the enhanced-services group became pregnant
twice and gave birth to between one and two additional
children. Many of the young mothers became pregnant again
and had their second child shortly after going onto welfare. Because
they continued having children after enrolling in the demonstration, more
than half the sample members had children age three and under at the time
of the second follow-up survey. Thus, to participate in employment-related
activities, many still needed child care for very young children.
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Exposure to the demonstration welfare policies and programs did not
substantially reduce subsequent pregnancies and births. The
programs in Newark and Chicago had no significant impacts on pregnancies
and births. In Camden, where pregnancy rates were highest, the program
did not reduce the likelihood that mothers in the enhanced-services group
ever became pregnant or the likelihood that they gave birth to a second child
during the follow-up period. Mothers in the enhanced-services group,
however, had slightly fewer pregnancies and births.
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When they were in elementary school, the first-born children of the
teenage mothers performed poorly, compared with children nationally, on several
measures of development and well-being. Because early development
sets children on a developmental trajectory that affects their later cognitive
and social-emotional well-being, it is important to note that the children
in the sample received substantially lower scores than children nationally
on the PPVT-R receptive vocabulary test. Analyses of national data
suggest that the PPVT-R is biased against minority children; however, because
research suggests that the PPVT-R is a good predictor of scholastic aptitude
for both African American and white children, the PPVT-R remains a useful
measure of cognitive well-being when comparisons are made within racial groups
or between groups whose racial and ethnic composition is the same.
The PPVT-R scores received by children in the TPD sample, who were mostly
African American and Hispanic, are somewhat lower than the scores of African
American and Hispanic children nationally. The children in the sample
received higher scores than children nationally on a measure of behavior
problems.
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The programs produced no impacts on mothers' parenting or on the
quality of the home environments they provided for their first-born
children. In Camden and Chicago, there were no significant
differences in the key measures of parenting and the quality of the home
environments of children of mothers in the regular- and enhanced-services
groups. For Newark, the analysis suggests that the children of mothers
in the enhanced-services group lived in slightly lower-quality home environments
than did the children of mothers in the regular-services group and that the
children had mothers who were slightly less responsive and accepting.
These differences are small, however, and not very meaningful in terms of
their likely implications for children's development.
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Requiring teenage mothers to participate in activities, and increasing
their use of child care when their children were very young, had neither
harmful nor beneficial effects on their children's development.
The programs increased the extent and intensity of child care, especially
center-based care, during the first two years after intake. When children
were in child care during that period, most were in care for at least 30
hours per week (Schochet and Kisker
1992). We found no significant differences between the regular-
and enhanced-services groups in children's cognitive and social-emotional
well-being and physical health when these children were five to eight years
old, except in Newark, where some small differences in children's outcomes
were significant. On two out of four achievement tests, children of
mothers in the enhanced-services group in Newark scored significantly lower
than did children of mothers in the regular-services group. Mothers
in the enhanced-services group in Newark also rated their children significantly
lower on a measure of prosocial behavior. These differences are small,
however, and in developmental terms, not very meaningful.
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Since the TPD was conducted, welfare policies have changed. The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 sets forth clear expectations
for families receiving welfare through education and residency requirements
for minor, unmarried teenage parents and through work requirements, time
limits on lifetime welfare receipt, and requirements for cooperation with
establishing child support for all welfare recipients. Programs and
policymakers may find the following lessons from the experiences of the TPD
programs useful, however, since they implemented clear expectations for
participation in self-sufficiency-oriented activities and provided case
management and support services to help young mothers meet those expectations.
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Teenage mothers respond positively to clear expectations when financial
consequences and support services accompany those expectations.
As long as the programs were operating, participation requirements were in
effect, and support services were available, mothers in the enhanced-services
group were significantly more likely to continue their education, attend
job training, or work. However, after the programs ended and the clear
expectations for participation in self-sufficiency-oriented activities no
longer existed, such impacts were no longer obtained.
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Most teenage parents are capable of employment but need encouragement
and some support services. Most of the young mothers were
employed at some time during the six-and-a-half-year follow-up period.
Few of the jobs obtained by the young mothers paid good wages, however, and
many did not offer benefits such as health insurance. Many of the mothers
in school, training, and employment needed help finding child care and dealing
with breakdowns in child care arrangements. A significant proportion
also needed help paying for child care.
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Ensuring access to child care was an important part of the intervention,
but fewer participants used program-provided child care subsidies than had
been anticipated. All three demonstration programs encouraged
participants to rely on child care arrangements that they could obtain without
additional financial assistance from the program, to the extent feasible.
With this encouragement, about one-third of those active participants needing
child care obtained free child care, most often from relatives. One-third
of the mothers in school, training, or work needed help paying for child
care. The proportion needing child care assistance may be different
under the new welfare policies, if the type or amount of child care assistance
offered is different or if relatives who would otherwise provide child care
must seek employment themselves.
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The evaluation results suggest that requiring teenage mothers of
young children to participate in full-time (30 hours per week) out-of-home
activities is not harmful to children, as some worried that it might
be. Requiring teenage mothers to participate in education
or employment-related activities for an average of two and a half years when
their children were very young, and providing child care assistance when
necessary, did not adversely affect children's well-being when they were
in early elementary school. It also, however, did not help them over
this period. If an important goal is to help children overcome the
disadvantage of being born to a teenage mother, then programs may need to
adopt a two-generation approach and offer high-quality developmental child
care or other child-focused services such as intensive parenting education
(or help mothers gain access to such services).
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It is important to help teenagers reduce their fertility, but different
strategies than those tried in this demonstration are needed.
The information about contraception and sources of birth control provided
by the programs during the workshops was not enough to enable the teenage
mothers to reduce their fertility. Other studies of teenage pregnancy
prevention interventions suggest that more intensive, focused strategies,
such as providing information, counseling, referrals, and follow-up during
home visits by nurses, might work better.
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The demonstration underscores the difficulty of changing the life
courses of poor teenage parents by intervening after they become parents.
The consequences of teenage parenthood for both mothers and children
are serious, and many of the teenage mothers who enrolled in the demonstration
programs were still living in difficult circumstances as young adults.
The programs did not substantially alter the life courses of the disadvantaged
young mothers they served. The difficulty of improving the lives of
mothers who give birth as teenagers highlights the importance of developing
strategies for preventing teenage pregnancies in the first place. For
welfare-dependent teenage parents, strategies that build on the demonstration
programs' promising early experiences and follow through by continuing to
hold expectations for participation in employment-related activities and
to provide needed support services over a longer period may be more successful
in improving the life courses of teenage parents.
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The noncustodial fathers of children born to poor teenage parents
provide little social or economic support. A small proportion
of the noncustodial fathers of the mothers' first-born children provided
financial or in-kind child support when their children were still very young,
and even fewer provided support when the children were in early elementary
school. Most did not have regular contact with their child. The
programs attempted to promote fathers' financial and social support by counseling
mothers, providing services to fathers (in Chicago), and arranging for staff
from the state child support enforcement agency to spend time at the program
site conducting workshops and interviews necessary for establishing paternity
and child support orders (in Newark and Chicago). The experiences of
the demonstration programs suggest that stronger measures, such as mandating
mothers' cooperation with child support enforcement procedures, providing
more extensive counseling to convince mothers of the importance of fathers
in their children's lives, and/or designing more comprehensive program services
for fathers, may be needed to increase the support teenage mothers receive
from the fathers of their children.
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The evaluation did not collect information to determine
whether the relatively low levels of support from and contact with fathers
resulted from mothers' desires to avoid contact with their former partners,
the noncustodial fathers' desires to distance themselves from their former
partner or their lack of interest in or ability to maintain a relationship
with their child, or other factors. (Return to text after
footnote)
Copies of the full report of the Six-Year Follow-up or
other Teenage Parent Demonstration reports can
be obtained by contacting:
Jan Watterworth, Librarian
Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
P.O. Box 2393
Princeton, NJ 08543-2393
(609) 799-3535
jwatterworth@mathematica-mpr.com
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