Kaestner Pobert, Tarlov Elizabeth
Institute of Government and Public Affairs, University of Illinois, Chicage, USA.
J Policy Anal Manage. 2006 Summer;25(3):623-43. doi: 10.1002/pam.20194.
Declines in the welfare caseload in the late 1990s brought significant change to the lives of many low-educated, single mothers. Many single mothers left welfare and entered the labor market and others found different ways to avoid going on public assistance. These changes may have affected the health and health behaviors of these women. To date, there has been little study of this issue. In this paper, we obtained estimates of the association between changes in the welfare caseload caused by welfare policy, and four health behaviors--smoking, drinking, diet, and exercise--and four self-reported measures of health--weight, days in poor mental health, days in poor physical health, and general health status. The results of our study reveal that recent declines in the welfare caseload were associated with less binge drinking, but otherwise welfare reform had little effect on health and health behaviors.
20世纪90年代末福利救济人数的下降给许多低学历单身母亲的生活带来了重大变化。许多单身母亲离开了福利体系，进入了劳动力市场，还有一些人找到了不同的方法来避免接受公共援助。这些变化可能影响了这些女性的健康状况和健康行为。到目前为止，对这个问题的研究很少。在本文中，我们估算了福利政策导致的福利救济人数变化与四种健康行为（吸烟、饮酒、饮食和锻炼）以及四种自我报告的健康指标（体重、心理健康不佳天数、身体健康不佳天数和总体健康状况）之间的关联。我们的研究结果表明，近期福利救济人数的下降与狂饮减少有关，但福利改革在其他方面对健康和健康行为影响不大。
