Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/314547 
Year of Publication: 
2025
Series/Report no.: 
IZA Discussion Papers No. 17650
Publisher: 
Institute of Labor Economics (IZA), Bonn
Abstract: 
We investigate how length of time on welfare during childhood affects economic outcomes in early adulthood. Using intergenerationally linked mother-child pairs from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we adopt a nonlinear difference-in-differences framework using the 1990s welfare reform to estimate average and quantile treatment effects on intensity of welfare use and earnings in adulthood. The causal estimates indicate that additional childhood welfare exposure leads to more adulthood years on the broader safety net for both daughters and sons, yet this positive relationship only applies below moderate levels of adult welfare participation and reverses at greater levels of dependence. Increasing childhood welfare exposure implies lower earnings in adulthood for daughters, however we find no evidence that it depresses adult sons’ earnings. Both daughters and sons exhibit some wage penalty from childhood welfare exposure, yet only daughters are penalized through hours worked in the labor market.
Subjects: 
quantile treatment effects
intergenerational welfare
nonlinear difference-in-differences
quantile correlations
JEL: 
I38
J62
H53
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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