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We now turn to family-level characteristics of TANF recipients that could potentially function as barriers to employment and self-sufficiency. These characteristics emerge in the context of the family environment, including the TANF recipient’s children, partner, or spouse or other household members such as elderly parents. We include in this area, family-level problems that could interfere with a recipient’s ability to go to work, look for work, or attend school or job training. Subtopics include caring for a family member with a disability or serious health problem, difficulty obtaining or using child care during the recipient’s work or school hours, domestic violence, and the presence of a family member involved in criminal activity.
Table V.1 summarizes our recommendations and priorities for measuring family barriers in the survey of TANF recipients. The estimate of total time to administer all the “A”-rated items in the family barriers domain, as indicated in Table V.1, is nine minutes.
| Family Barriers | Number of Items | Past Survey(s) | Estimate of Time (minutes) | Priority Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Family Member with Disability/Health Problem | ||||
| Respondent has child with a health, behavioral behavioral or other need that limits his/her activity | 6 | SPD, WES, NE; IL; CW | 1.0 | A |
| Respondent has child with vision, hearing, or other conditions that require special aids | 6 | SPD | 1.0 | C |
| Child’s condition interferes with Respondent’s ability to work or attend training | 2 | NE | .50 | A |
| Respondent’s children have no health insurance | 1 | MO; NE; IL; IA; WES | .25 | A |
| Respondent has other family member with disability/other special needs | 1 | NE | .25 | B |
| Other family member’s disabling condition interferes with Respondent’s ability to work or attend training | 1 | NE | .25 | B |
| Problems with Child Care | ||||
| Due to a problem with child care: | ||||
|
1 | WES; CW | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES; MO; AC; IL; CW | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES; MO; NE; AC | .25 | A |
| The following child care situations prevent Respondent from working or looking for work: | ||||
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
|
1 | MO | .25 | A |
| Respondent concerned about... | ||||
|
1 | WES; NE | .25 | B |
|
1 | WES; NE | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES; NE; AC | .25 | C |
|
1 | WES | .25 | A |
|
1 | WES | .25 | A |
| Respondent has no relatives who could help out with child care | 1 | WES | .25 | C |
| Afraid caretaker would harm child | 1 | WES | .25 | A |
| Rate the quality of child care you use | 1 | AC; CW | .25 | C |
| Has any child had an accident, injury, poisoning in child care? | 1 | IA; AC | .25 | C |
| Is any child under 12 in self-care? | 1 | AC | .25 | B |
| Number of different current child care arrangements | 1 | IA; WES | .25 | C |
| How much does Respondent pay for child care? | 1 | WES; NE; AC; IA | .25 | B |
| Receive child care subsidy | 1 | NE | .25 | A |
| Ease or problems getting child care subsidy | 1 | NE | .25 | B |
| Domestic Violence | ||||
| Severe physical abuse | 9 | WES; NE; AC; IA; CW | 1.25 | A |
| Sexual abuse | 1 | WES; NE; AC; IA; CW | .25 | A |
| Serious threats | 1 | NE; IA; CW | .25 | C |
| Serious threats | 3 | WES | .75 | A |
| Abusive control | 1 | WES; NE; IA; CW | .25 | A |
| Emotional abuse or verbal humiliation | 1 | NE; IA; CW | .25 | C |
| Stalking | 1 | CW | .25 | B |
| Interference or harassment at work | 2 | WES | .50 | A |
| Who committed abuse (partner versus stranger)? | 1 | WES; NE; AC; IA | .25 | B |
| Whether relationship interferes with Respondent’s ability to work or attend job training | 1 | NE | .25 | A |
| Family Member with Criminal Involvement | ||||
| Family member or close friend in jail in past 12 months | 1 | WES | .25 | C |
| Someone close to Respondent died or was killed | 1 | WES | .25 | C |
| Respondent lived with someone with an alcohol or drug problem | 1 | WES | .25 | C |
| Respondent lived with people she wished didn't live there | 1 | WES | .25 | C |
The evidence from previous research on welfare recipients suggests that children in low-income families may suffer from physical, emotional, and other health problems to a greater extent than children in higher-income families. Children in low-income families are more likely to have been born with low birth weight and to have higher exposure to environmental pollutants such as lead paint, which can put them at greater risk of learning problems, such as developmental delay, learning disabilities, and other conditions. Children with special needs typically require greater attention and specialized care, which could cause difficulty for their mothers in terms of obtaining and keeping steady employment. Most child care providers are not equipped to provide specialized care; even when such services are available, the cost is often higher. Child care providers and schools that accept children with emotional or behavioral conditions may require the mother to unexpectedly take off work to address problems that arise, an issue that many employers of low-wage workers are unwilling to accommodate.
In the WES, 22 percent of respondents indicated they had a child with a health problem that limits the child’s activities. This compares with 15.7 percent of all women in the 1994 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY). The women reporting this barrier in the WES were significantly less likely to be working 20 or more hours per week. Twenty-two percent of Kern County respondents in the CalWORKS Prevalence Project also reported a child with a health problem that limits the child’s activities; however, the rate was lower in Stanislaus County (13 percent). In each county, about one-third of those reporting such a barrier said they had been unable to take a job, school, or training because of having to take care of the child; while 17 percent said they had to quit a work or training situation for the same reason.
Finally, other family situations that could interfere with the respondent’s ability to find or maintain work involve caring for an elderly or disabled parent or other relative. Nursing home or other special care may be unavailable or unaffordable for low-income families. Little data exist on the prevalence of adult caregiving as a barrier to employment among welfare recipients.
In both the WES and the CalWORKS Prevalence Project, having a child with a health problem was defined as having at least one child in the family with a physical, learning, or emotional problem that limited his or her activity. Three questions are asked: (1) does the respondent have a child who meets this definition; (2) the name of the condition or problem; and (3) does the child’s condition interfere with the respondent’s work or regular activities. The WES also asks a series of questions related to special behavioral problems (feeding, sleeping, crying) that may be present in any infants in the home.
The Nebraska survey asks whether the respondent has a child with health, behavioral, or other special needs. It also asks whether the respondent has an elderly, disabled, or sick family member or friend the respondent is caring for. If the respondent answers affirmatively to either question, he or she is then asked whether the situation caused the respondent to lose a job or be prevented from working or attending training activities.
The SPD asks several questions about children’s health and disability. The respondent is asked about the child’s general health; whether the child has a developmental or learning disability; whether the child has a health condition that makes it difficult to do things appropriate for his or her age; whether the child has any limitation in his or her ability to do regular school work because of a physical, learning, or mental health condition; whether the child has received any special education services in the past year; and whether anyone has told the respondent that the child has an emotional or behavioral problem. Six additional questions ask about the child’s difficulty with vision, hearing, and the need for special aids.
To identify respondents for whom caregiving is a barrier to employment, we recommend the six items used in the SPD, supplemented by two items from the Nebraska survey that ask about the effect of the condition on the respondent’s ability to work or attend job training. The SPD questions will provide specificity with regard to the type of health or behavioral problem the child has and how limiting the condition is. We also recommend including the item about children’s health insurance from the Nebraska survey.
In order to remain steadily employed, mothers with young children require access to stable, affordable, and good-quality child care. Yet recent evidence suggests that widespread problems may exist in the availability, accessibility, and quality of low-cost child care. The current supply of child care providers may be lower than the demand, due in part to the large number of welfare mothers who are now subject to work requirements. Moreover, financial assistance for child care expenses has been found to be inconsistent, with child care subsidies sometimes unavailable or difficult to access.
More than 26 percent of the Alameda study respondents reported that child care was needed but unavailable (defined as more children in the family needing child care than are currently receiving it, inability to obtain or pay for child care, or inability to obtain evening child care). In the CalWORKS Prevalence Project, about one-quarter of respondents in each county (Kern and Stanislaus) reported quitting or not taking a job (or job training) in the past 12 months, due to difficulty arranging or paying for child care (Chandler and Meisel 2000).
The type of employment low-skilled women are likely to obtain when moving off welfare often involves nonstandard hours that may not match the standard schedules of child care providers. In Alameda County, many families reported needing evening child care, which was unavailable; this group (16.4 percent) was significantly less likely to be working even after accounting for other potential barriers and respondents’ background characteristics (Driscoll, Speiglman, and Norris 2000).
In addition, low-wage jobs may not offer benefits that would allow parents to take time off to care for a sick child; flexibility of hours worked may be limited, potentially contributing to difficulty in child care coverage during school breaks and summers. The limited incomes of welfare recipients usually means that child care must be low-cost, which can translate into care that is of lower quality or less reliable. Finally, the availability of child care for infants and disabled children is considered especially limited for low-income families.
Questions about the use of child care — such as the number of different arrangements, types of arrangements, and number of hours of child care — have been administered in numerous studies of welfare recipients. However, specific questions about child care as a potential barrier to work — the extent to which it interferes with the respondent’s ability to attend work or training — have only recently begun to be developed and fielded. Such items were included in the WES, Nebraska, Missouri, Alameda, and CalWORKS surveys. However, child care as a work barrier is not well understood; consequently most of these studies take a somewhat different approach to measuring this potential factor. Below is a brief discussion of various aspects of child care as a work barrier and the ways in which they have been measured.
One approach involves asking respondents about their concerns about child care. Responses suggest the extent to which the mother may be struggling with child care issues that could — if not now, in the future — interfere with her ability to work or attend job training. These concerns can include such issues as the provider being too far away, too costly, unreliable, or unavailable during nonstandard hours. Seven of this type of question were asked in the first wave of the WES; three were selected for inclusion in the Nebraska survey.
A more outcomes-based approach to measuring this barrier involves directly asking whether a problem with child care has resulted in the respondent needing to quit her job, being late or absent for work, or being unable to look for work or take a job. These five items were asked in the second wave of the WES survey; those pertaining to having to quit a job or turn down a job appeared in the Missouri, Nebraska, Alameda, and CalWORKS surveys.
Problems with child care may be related to specific situations or times when it is difficult to obtain care. A series of questions in the Missouri survey ask the respondent whether any of the following situations caused her to lose or quit a job, be unable to look for a job, or lose time from work: getting care for infants; getting care for sick children; getting care for disabled children; getting after-school care; getting care during school breaks and summer; and getting early-morning or evening care for children.
Finally, other questions that appear in the surveys we examined include asking the respondent to name all the types of child care used, the total number of hours used, and the perception of the quality of child care. Although useful from a descriptive and contextual point of view, these single-item measures are less direct in determining whether child care is a barrier to the respondent’s employability.
To adequately measure the extent to which child care may be a barrier to employment, we recommend questions in three major areas: (1) the degree to which child care has interfered with the respondent’s ability to participate in work or training; (2) the specific child care situations that have caused a problem with respect to work or training; and (3) concerns about the cost, quality, and reliability of the child care provider. For the first area, we specifically recommend the five items fielded in Wave II of the WES (due to a problem with child care, respondent was unable to look for a work/training program; unable to take a job/participate in training; late for work/school/training; absent from work/school/training; or had to quit a job or training activity). For the second area about child care situations, we recommend the six items in the Missouri survey (the respondent is prevented from looking for work or lost a job because of a problem getting child care for: infants; sick children; or disabled children; or getting child care during school breaks/summer; after school; or early morning or evening). For the third area, we suggest four items from the WES (the respondent is concerned about: quality of available child care; dependability of child care; safety of child care setting; cost of child care). Finally, we recommend that one item be included to assess whether the respondent receives a child care subsidy from the Nebraska survey.
Domestic violence refers to a broad array of tactics that perpetrators may use within a relationship to exert power and control over the victim. It can involve emotional and verbal abuse, physical and sexual abuse, the exercise of coercive, controlling or threatening behavior, stalking and other psychological abuse. These behaviors typically result in physical and emotional harm to the victim.
New evidence confirms that domestic violence is an important contributor to the decision to apply for TANF. As part of the CalWORKS Prevalence Project, welfare recipients who were receiving domestic violence services were interviewed. Thirty-seven percent indicated that a domestic violence situation was the sole reason they applied for cash assistance; another 18 percent said it was a contributing factor in their decision to apply (Meisel 2000). As might be expected, the lack of independent economic means is a major reason many women remain in abusive relationships, and welfare is one of the ways by which women can leave these harmful situations.
Domestic violence can affect a woman’s ability to attend work or training programs, both directly and indirectly. The partner may prevent the woman from going to work or may harass her at the workplace. Direct physical harm may result in missed work; and the emotional consequences of being abused — including fear, depression, and anxiety — can be sufficiently distracting to affect the woman’s job performance. More subtle effects of domestic abuse may involve undermining the respondent’s ability to balance work and home responsibilities.
There is no universally accepted typology of different kinds of domestic abuse, and little consensus about how to assess its presence. To date, the development of survey measures of domestic violence have focused primarily on physical violence, with less attention given to other forms of domestic abuse. Most welfare studies administer some variation of the Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS).(1) By focusing on specific behaviors, rather than broad questions about abuse, the CTS is thought to reduce measurement error associated with both under- and over-reporting. Over the years, researchers have created numerous variations and adaptations of the CTS since it was developed in 1972. The original “Form A” included three subsets of questions related to Reasoning, Verbal/Symbolic Aggression, and Physical Violence (Strauss 1979). The most commonly used questions are the nine items that make up the original Physical Violence subscale. However, restricting measurement of domestic violence to severe physical abuse means having to exclude such other abusive strategies as emotional abuse and controlling behavior. For that reason, researchers have modified the subscale to include questions about these other abusive strategies. For more information on the CTS, please see.
The widely used Physical Violence subscale of the CTS was administered in all three waves of the WES, along with additional items about abuse. In addition, the CalWORKS Prevalence Project asked recipients questions from a modified version of the CTS, and went beyond physical abuse to ask about stalking (one item); verbal abuse (one item), controlling behavior (four items), and other threats (four items). The rate of physical abuse reported in the WES during the past 12 months was almost 15 percent. The CalWORKS Prevalence Project found similar rates: 16 percent among Kern County welfare recipients, 25 percent among Stanislaus County welfare applicants. When CalWORKS included the other forms of domestic violence in their measure of any abuse in the past 12 months, they found 35 percent and 49 percent in Kern and Stanislaus counties, respectively.
The frame of reference with respect to when the domestic abuse occurred is important because it can greatly influence reports. The CTS asks whether the respondent “ever” experienced the abusive event and, if so, whether it occurred during the past 12 months. The CalWORKS Prevalence Project, which used the CTS, reported that 62 percent of Kern County recipients and 64 percent of Stanislaus County applicants had been physically abused at some time in their lives.
The Iowa Child Impact Survey asked respondents five questions about different types of abusive behavior: emotional abuse, threats, physical abuse, sexual abuse, and controlling behavior. Respondents who answer affirmatively are asked to identify the relationship of the perpetrator (for example, husband, boyfriend, partner) and how recently the event occurred, up to two years prior to the interview. The Nebraska survey used the same items but in a way that was more feasible for telephone administration. An additional item in the Nebraska survey asks how much the respondent’s relationship interfered with her work or job training in the past year.
The Alameda study took yet another approach to the measurement of domestic violence. It asks seven questions about whether someone in the past year did any of the following things to the respondent: stole money, fought with the respondent, choked the respondent, threw something or hit the respondent, hurt the respondent so much she had to go to the doctor or clinic, forced her to have sex, or used a knife or gun on the respondent. If the respondent experienced any of these events, she was asked to identify whether the perpetrator was a stranger, a partner, another family member, or someone else the respondent knows.
Because it has been widely used, and thus permits some comparison, we recommend the nine yes/no items from the severe physical abuse portion of the CTS, plus the one item on sexual abuse. To obtain a broader measure, however, we further recommend supplementing this scale with six additional items used in the WES (Wave II) that capture various forms of emotional abuse and controlling behavior, and one item used in the Nebraska survey to capture the extent to which the respondent’s relationship with a partner interferes with her work or job training activities.
Respondents who have a family member or person in the household who is actively involved in illegal activities are likely to be subject to unstable and/or dangerous situations. Potential police involvement could make the respondent’s living situation tenuous and put her at risk of being arrested as an accomplice. Living with such an individual is stressful and distracting and thus may affect the respondent’s well-being and ability to perform adequately on the job.
None of the surveys that we examined included direct measures of whether the respondent has a family or household member that is involved in criminal activity. This is probably because of concerns that the respondent will be reluctant to reveal such information. The WES does, however, ask a series of questions about the respondent’s experience of stressful life events that may have occurred in the past 12 months — including items that may indirectly suggest the presence of a household member with criminal involvement. For example, the respondent is asked whether she has had a relative or close friend in jail; whether someone she was close to died or was killed; whether she lived in a household with someone who had a problem with alcohol or drugs; and whether she had people living with her who she wished were not there.
At this time, we recommend against measuring this potential barrier, for two reasons. First, there is no empirical data on the prevalence of having a family or household member with criminal involvement, nor the degree to which such a situation might interfere with a welfare recipient’s employability. Second, although we could attempt to measure this potential barrier indirectly, direct questions of this nature are likely to be strongly influenced by respondent bias. Given the limitations on survey length, it may be prudent to restrict the survey to barriers that we know are common and that can reasonably be measured.
1. For more information on the CTS, please see www.nnfr.org/eval/bib_ins/STRAUS.html, http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CTS_Application.htm, or www.nvawr.org/research/screenings.html.
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