This paper uses the introduction of preparatory school classes targeting six-year-old children in Romania to study whether universal, compulsory, public care provision could increase female employment. Results from difference-in-difference estimations show that the reform resulted in rising employment rates for mothers of six-year-old children.…

In 2022, the Center for the Study of Social Policy and Project SPARC conducted research to better understand the barriers experienced by parenting students participating in CalWORKs, California's cash assistance program for families with children. This brief highlights findings from the research on parenting students' experiences meeting their…

In a rapidly changing 21st-century economy with growing competition from abroad, continuing to field a world-leading, skilled workforce is both more essential and more challenging than ever to the mission of delivering increasing prosperity for American families and preserving our nation's economic leadership. The US must therefore confront its…

All OECD governments want to give parents more choice in their work and family decisions. This book looks at the different ways in which governments support families. It seeks to provide answers to questions like: Is spending on family benefits going up, and how does it vary by the age of the child? Has the crisis affected public support for…

The number of working women with children has increased dramatically in the past 20 years, increasing the demand for child care services to help working families secure and maintain their economic self-sufficiency. As more welfare families will be expected to seek and keep jobs, demand for child care services will increase. Because Congress is…

The most remarkable trend in the U.S. labor force over the past 3 decades has been the entrance of more and more mothers of young children. In 1985, a total of 54 percent of the women with children under 6 years of age were working--four times the 1950 level. This report summarizes recent trends in labor force participation and outlines some of…

These two Kids Count brief reports discuss issues related to the well-being of Rhode Island children. The first report identifies ways to measure the impact of state and federal welfare reform proposals on children who receive benefits through Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). Potential measures of success for welfare reform include…

During the 1990s, the federal government promised low-income families that work would pay. Parents moved into jobs in response to new welfare rules requiring work, tax credits and other work supports that boosted take-home pay. Unfortunately, the record shows that low-income families have not progressed much. Many do not bring home enough to cover…

The National Study of Child Care for Low-Income Families, conducted for the Administration for Children and Families in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is a 5-year research effort in 17 states and 25 communities that will provide information on the response of states and communities to the child care needs of low-income families,…

This research brief presents some main findings from a study of employer-based support systems in the United States to help families meet their caregiving responsibilities, and focuses on the failure of existing policies to support caregiving responsibilities of low-income parents and women. The brief also presents policy alternatives to help…

Noting that child poverty has been a persistent problem for Arkansas children despite improvements in the economy, this Kids Count special report focuses on child poverty in Arkansas. The report examines how child poverty is measured and notes the limitation of existing poverty data; it also discusses the causes and consequences of poverty and…

Despite the growing interest in the care of children younger than age 3, there is little national information available on their current child care arrangements. This study used data from the National Survey of America's Families on the types of care, hours in care, and the number of nonparental arrangements for under-age-3 children of working…

The Family Income Standard (FIS), developed in Arkansas as a more adequate measure of families' economic well-being than the widely-criticized Federal Poverty Level (FPL), is defined as the amount of money a working family must earn to meet its daily living needs without assistance from charities. This report details the effort to update and…

Child care services in Sweden are distinguished by a high standard of quality and by the fundamental principle that they exist for all children. This governmental fact sheet provides useful facts and figures on Swedish child care law and government policy. It is divided into 16 sections covering: (1) rights of children and their families; (2)…

With increasing unemployment in the United States, the nation has seen a drop in the percentage of children in poverty with one or more parents in the workforce, a reverse of trends evident in the late 1990s. This research brief presents a statistical snapshot of working poor families with children in 2001. Analyses revealed that in 2001 children…