Urban Institute: Family/Parents
Urban Institute reports on: Family/Parents - The Urban Institute is a nonprofit nonpartisan policy research and educational organization established to examine the social, economic, and governance problems facing the nation.

• Federal Housing Subsidies: To Rent or To Own?
  A family's housing can take one of two forms: renting and homeownership. Although both provide shelter, they differ significantly in their implications for asset accumulation. Direct outlays made up 87.1 percent of federal rental-assistance spending in 2006, while tax breaks provided over 98 percent of federal homeownership subsidies. This breakdown reveals that the federal government places a priority on homeownership as opposed to rental housing; however, the distribution of homeownership tax breaks suggests that they provide little benefit to low-income families.
• Have Middle-Income Married Couples Prospered with Age?
  Using data from the Federal Reserve Board's Surveys of Consumer Finances (SCFs), we follow one segment of a cohort over its life cyclemarried couples as the husband ages from 3644 in 1989 to 5159 in 2004. We find that middle-income and lower-middle-income married-couple households experienced modest income growth but rapid growth in net worth. Overall, the evidence documents significant gains in income and wealth as married couples aged from their late 30s to their 50s.
• Immigrant Integration in Low-income Urban Neighborhoods : Improving Economic Prospects and Strengthening Connections for Vulnerable Families
  The paper explores the financial well-being and economic integration of immigrant groups compared with native-born minorities and whites in vulnerable urban neighborhoods. Among the main findings from the analysis is that immigrants and native minorities in the neighborhoods we examine face similar types of economic difficulties. However, after controlling for citizenship, English proficiency, educational attainment, and having a drivers license and a reliable car, many of the economic disadvantages disappear for immigrant groups, but not for native-born minorities. These findings suggest that even in tough neighborhoods, the potential for economic integration of immigrants is strong.
• Partners for Fragile Families Demonstration Projects : Employment and Child Support Outcomes and Trends
  The Partnership for Fragile Families Demonstration projects, operating in 13 sites across the country, provided a range of services aimed at increasing the capacity of young, economically disadvantaged fathers in becoming financial and emotional resources to their children and sought to reduce poverty and welfare dependence. As part of a multi-component evaluation, this report examines how participants fared in two key areas: (1) employment rates and earnings levels and (2) the establishment of child support orders and the payment of child support.
• Racial Disparities and the New Federalism
  The paper explores how shifts in both social welfare policies and economic conditions beginning in the mid-1990s altered the relative well-being of blacks compared to whitesbetween 1997 and 2002. It uses the National Survey of America's Families (NSAF) to assess how the relative well-being of black families improved or disparities persisted. The findings suggest that some of the disparities between whites and blacks narrowed between 1997 and 2002, especially among people with low incomes. But gaps in income, child school outcomes, employment, assets, and welfare and other income supports, remained essentially unchanged over the period.
• Lecture Series Honoring Paul Offner Launched by University of Wisconsin and Urban Institute
  Paul Offners legacy of applying good scholarship to public policy solutions, especially for societys disadvantaged, will be celebrated with a lecture series sponsored by the University of Wisconsin-Madisons La Follette School of Public Affairs in partnership with the Washington, D.C.-based Urban Institute.
• TANF Caseload Composition and Leavers Synthesis Report
  Since the passage of federal welfare reform in 1996, policy makers have been concerned about the well-being of families that have left welfare as well as those who have remained on the caseload. This report synthesizes the most up-to-date research about what is known about the composition of the TANF caseload and the status of TANF leavers, and how this has changed over time. This synthesis is supplemented by tabulations of data from the NSAF, SIPP and CPS on the demographics, economic situation, and barriers to work of current and former TANF recipients over time.
• Meeting Responsibilities at Work and Home : Public and Private Supports
  Public or private policies to help working parents balance job and family responsibilities are substantially more limited in the United States than in other industrialized nations. This is true for parents in general, but is particularly true for low-income working parents who hold lower wage jobs. This paper summarizes what we know about families' access to supports, employers' experiences, and public and employer efforts to expand them. It explores paid sick leave/paid time off, paid parental leave at the birth of a child, workplace flexibility, child care assistance, and initiatives to link low-income working families with public benefits.
• Low-Wage Workers with Children Face Difficulties Gaining Ground
  About one in 20 workers age 18 to 61, some 7 million men and women, earn low wages and live in low-income families with children. New analyses by Urban Institute researchers address ways the private and public sectors can support working families and, at the same time, encourage productivity and organizational competitiveness; what supports to provide low-income workers; and public policy's role in encouraging or mandating stronger private-sector involvement.
• Is the Ring the Thing? : Child Well-being and the Transition from Cohabitation to Marriage
  This paper assesses the extent to which children living in cohabiting families would benefit if their mothers were to marry. Children whose cohabiting mothers marry have higher math and reading scores than children whose mothers either continue to cohabit or who dissolve their cohabiting relationships; marriage is uncorrelated with behavioral outcomes of these children. Interestingly, much of the difference between the test scores of children whose cohabiting mothers marry and those who do not actually predates the marriage. This suggests that the benefits of marriage for children living with cohabiting couples are smaller than they initially appear.
• The Implementation of the Partners for Fragile Families Demonstration Projects
  This report describes the design and implementation of the Partners for Fragile Families (PFF) demonstration projects. Operating in 13 sites across the country, PFF provided a range of services aimed at increasing the capacity of young, economically disadvantaged fathers in becoming financial and emotional resources to their children and sought to reduce poverty and welfare dependence. The report examines the programs structure and institutional partnerships; participant characteristics; recruitment and enrollment efforts; the nature of employment, peer support, parenting, and child support-related services provided through the initiatives; and implementation challenges and lessons.
• TANF Policies for the Hard to Employ: Understanding State Approaches and Future Directions
  This study examines states approaches to serving TANF recipients facing multiple barriers to work in fall 2006. It also describes changes states anticipate (partly in response to TANF reauthorization) in the near future to help these recipients move into work and off the caseload. Study results are based primarily on structured interviews with state TANF program officials in 17 states including the states with the largest TANF caseloads. The findings highlight the different approaches taken by state TANF programs on how to best help recipients with serious barriers and provide early information on states thinking on how their approach may change for this group in the future.
• Dissemination Lessons Learned
  This paper describes the strategies and tactics used by the Urban Institute's Assessing the New Federalism (ANF) project to communicate changes in the social safety net in the wake of welfare reform. From 1997 to 2004, the growth of electronic communications revolutionized the way people communicate. This report documents how ANF adapted to these changes and offers lessons for future work. Several themes run through this work: continual evaluation of the dissemination program led to continual evolution; cost, time and outcomes were major measures of effectiveness; and being timely and relevant required ne