The 131st Annual Meeting (November 15-19, 2003) of APHA

Abstract #55748

Kevin M. Gorey, PhD, MSW, School of Social Work, University of Windsor, 401 Sunset Avenue, Windsor, ON N9B 3P4, Canada, 519 253-4232, ext. 3085, gorey@uwindsor.ca

Welfare reform’s scholarly foundation was laid by social and behavioral scientists whose theorizing emphasized personal, even genetic, characteristics as determinants of welfare dependence (e.g., Herrnstein & Murray, 1994, “The bell curve”). Attraction to welfare benefits was seen as causing dependence and increases in such prevalent purported social ills as underclass fertility, out-of-wedlock births, family breakups, and female household headedness. Other theorists advanced social explanations such as structural unemployment and joblessness for these welfare phenomena (e.g., Wilson, 1987; 1996). A previous meta-analysis of 116 American and Canadian studies (1975 to 2002) found that joblessness accounted for 25-fold more criterion—welfare-related social ills—variability (r²) than did the availability and generosity of welfare benefits (Gorey, 2002). This meta-analysis of 47 North American studies (1995 to 2003) of the fixed-effects of welfare reform interventions provided a further exposé of the relative weightiness of so-called liberal versus conservative theories of welfare dependence. Some of its key integrative findings were: (1) While caseloads consistently decreased, the weighted intervention versus comparison group aggregate rate difference (RD) on the key outcome of gainful employment was extremely small (4%); and (2) This main effect was moderated significantly by the availability of jobs in study areas (RD = 18%) and the programmatic incorporation of child care services (RD = 25%). These findings have clear implications for the health of children, families and communities, and ought to be well understood as we reconsider specific and general (health care, education, economic) social welfare reforms in an era of relative economic stagnation.

Learning Objectives:

• To become acquainted with extant knowledge on the effects of contemporary welfare reform interventions.
• To understand their overall effects in terms of cost savings and benefits or detriments.
• To understand how contextualized analyses (exploration of moderators) can produce more complex knowledge that is more useful in both scientific and practical senses.
• To understand how, despite its limitations, meta-analysis of observational studies can be used as an effective research planning and policy developmental tool.

Keywords: Welfare Reform, Policy/Policy Development

Related Web page: www.uwindsor.ca/gorey

Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.

Handout (.ppt format, 58.0 kb)