ABSTRACT
This article presents research that examines potential effects of welfare reform on children in late childhood through adolescence. The research used the Survey of Program Dynamics to examine the links between outcomes for adolescents, source of income, mother’s employment, and welfare reform. Specifically, the research examined how poverty status and family welfare receipt during middle childhood interact with current poverty status and welfare receipt during adolescence to influence a range of outcomes for adolescents. The outcomes that are examined include both parent reports and a set of indicators that 64are available in the 1998 adolescent self-administered questionnaire. Overall the study found that school outcome variables, status offence/criminal behavior variables, and substance use and abuse are the adolescent outcomes which are most sensitive to differences in income, patterns of program participation, and the timing and extent of maternal employment.
