Cross-National Variation in the Relationship between Welfare Generosity and Single Mother Employment

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221120760
• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Date: 01 July 2022
• Subject Matter: Poverty, Employment, Income, and Income-Support Policies

ANNALS, AAPSS, 702, July 2022 37

DOI: 10.1177/00027162221120760

Cross-National

Variation in the

Relationship

between

Welfare

Generosity and

Single Mother

Employment

By

THOMAS BIEGERT,

DAVID BRADY,

and

LENA HIPP

1120760ANN THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMYWELFARE GENEROSITY AND SINGLE MOTHER EMPLOYMENT

research-article2022

Reform of the U.S. welfare system in 1996 spurred

claims that cuts to welfare programs effectively incen-

tivized single mothers to find employment. It is difficult

to assess the veracity of those claims, however, absent

evidence of how the relationship between welfare ben-

efits and single mother employment generalizes across

countries. This study combines data from the European

Union Labour Force Survey and the U.S. Current

Population Survey (1992-2015) into one of the largest

samples of single mothers ever, testing the relationships

between welfare generosity and single mothers’

employment and work hours. We find no consistent

evidence of a negative relationship between welfare

generosity and single mother employment outcomes.

Rather, we find tremendous cross-national heterogene-

ity, which does not clearly correspond to well-known

institutional variations. Our findings demonstrate the

limitations of single country studies and the pervasive,

salient interactions between institutional contexts and

social policies.

Keywords: single mothers; employment; welfare state

benefits; cross-national; heterogeneity

Following the 1996 welfare reform in the

United States, American social policy

research largely concluded that single mothers

can be pushed to work (e.g., Blank 2002;

Corcoran et al. 2000; Danziger et al. 2002;

Herbst 2010; Heinrich 2014; Hoynes and

Thomas Biegert is an Assistant Professor in Social

Policy at the London School of Economics and Political

Science. His research on social policies and labor mar-

ket inequalities has been published in journals such as

American Sociological Review, Socio-Economic

Review, European Sociological Review, and Journal of

European Social Policy.

David Brady is a professor in the School of Public

Policy at University of California, Riverside. He is also

a Research Professor in Inequality and Social Policy at

the WZB Berlin Social Science Center. He authored

Rich Democracies, Poor People and edited The Oxford

Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty.

Correspondence: t.biegert@lse.ac.uk

38 THE ANNALS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY

Stabile 2019; Noonan, Smith, and Corcoran 2007). For example, by claiming that

the increased employment of single mothers “has been achieved to a much

greater degree than anyone expected,” Moffitt (2002) affirmed classic arguments

about how generous social policies have adverse labor supply effects (e.g., Bitler

and Karoly 2015; Cascio etal. 2015; Immervoll etal. 2007). This conclusion also

affirmed the intuition that single mothers would be especially responsive to cuts

in benefits (Brady and Burroway 2012; Damaske, Bratter, and Frech 2017;

Destro and Brady 2011; Gonzalez 2004; Herbst 2010; Jaehrling, Kalina, and

Mesaros 2015). Utility-maximizing single mothers, the argument goes, could find

parenting to be more meaningful and rewarding than low-wage work, while gen-

erous welfare programs subsidize the decision not to work. Conversely, the ines-

capable costs of raising children could be a particularly strong incentive to work

in the absence of generous welfare programs. Consistent with this line of think-

ing, the reduction in welfare generosity in the United States did coincide with a

substantial increase in single mother employment (Hoynes and Stabile 2019).

Despite the prominence of this American literature, its conclusions have been

subjected to little cross-national scrutiny. Indeed, the American literature rarely

acknowledges that the U.S. case is unusual in terms of high inequality, weak

social policies, and lack of institutions supporting working mothers (Hegewisch

and Gornick 2011; Misra et al. 2012; Nieuwenhuis and Maldonado 2018).

Compared to other rich democracies, the risk of poverty and unemployment for

single mothers is also unusually high in the United States (Brady, Finnigan, and

Hübgen 2017; Damaske, Bratter, and Frech 2017).

The U.S.-based literature has nonetheless been quite influential for economic

and social policy debates since the 1990s. Albeit less punitive than the U.S.

reforms, the Working Families Tax Credit introduced in the UK in 1999 similarly

aimed to increase employment of single mothers (Hills and Waldfogel 2005,

Francesconi and Van der Klaauw 2007). The UK subsequently documented ris-

ing employment rates among single mothers and doubled down on restricting

lone parents’ entitlements to social assistance in 2008 (Rafferty and Wiggan

2011). By contrast, though, a reform similar to the Personal Responsibility and

Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act in the Netherlands in 1996 did not increase

single mother employment (Knijn and van Wel 2001).

Is the U.S. case unusual? If, indeed, the American findings are not robust

across countries, this should qualify the general conclusions drawn from the U.S.

case. Rather than a general relationship between welfare generosity and single

Lena Hipp is the head of the research group “Work & Care” at the WZB Berlin Social Science

Center and holds a professorship at the University of Potsdam/Germany. Her research on

social inequalities related to gender and family has been published in various journals, includ-

ing European Sociological Review, Journal of Marriage and the Family, Social Forces, and

Socio-Economic Review.

NOTE: Previous versions of this article were presented at the European Social Policy

Association Network (ESPAnet), American Sociological Association, and Swiss Sociological

Association meetings. We thank those audiences, the editors of this volume, an anonymous

reviewer, as well as the reading group at the LSE Social Policy Department for their sugges-

tions and comments.