Welfare, Children and Families, a Three City Study

DESCRIPTION: The Welfare, Children and Families Study is a longitudinal study of children and their caregivers in low-income families that were living in low-income neighborhoods in three cities. The first survey was conducted in 1999 and two follow-ups were conducted in 2001 and again in 2005. The purpose of the study is to investigate the consequences of policy changes resulting from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The survey was designed to provide information on the health and cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development of children and on their primary caregivers' labor force behavior, welfare experiences, family lives, use of social service, health, and well-being. The data come from in-person interviews conducted between March and December, 1999 with 2,402 children and their caregivers in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. The study population consisted of children aged birth to 4 and 10 to 14 who have a female primary caregiver, whose caregivers self-identify as non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic African-American, or Hispanic of any race, and who lives in families with incomes below 200 percent of the poverty line, living in low-income neighborhoods in Boston, Chicago, or San Antonio. The wave 2 data come from completed interviews conducted between September 2000 and June 2001 with 2,250 caregivers and 2,158 of the children from wave 1. The children in wave 2 are between the ages of 1 and 7 or 10 and 16. Wave 3 was conducted between February 2005 and January 2006, with 1,944 of the focal children aged 5 to 10 or aged 15 to 20. Included in the wave three follow-up was a supplemental survey conducted between May 2005 and May 2006, and included interviews of the teachers of the focal children.

CODEBOOKS: Codebooks are available in pdf format on the local area network (R:\CFDR\Public\Data\Three Cities), and on CDROM in the CFDR office. Included in the local area network file are folders for Wave I, Wave I Embedded Data and Wave II. Within each folder there is a Codebooks subdirectory which includes the adult and child codebooks (pdf), as well as a data dictionary (.dic).

DATA: Data are available for all three waves on the local area network (R:\CFDR\Public\Data\Three Cities), within subdirectories called Raw Data and Data Sets. If you are using SAS, the raw data can be converted to a SAS dataset by using the SAS code (.sas) found in the Code subdirectory. If you are using SPSS, the Data Sets subdirectory contains an SPSS portable system file that may be read directly into SPSS.

LIST OF FREQUENCIES: Frequencies are available for all variables and waves in the codebooks and in .FRQ files in each wave folder.

WEBLINKS: http://www.jhu.edu/~welfare/ Full questionnaires are available for download.

UPCOMING RELEASES: Technical Documentation and Errata regarding the public release files are posted on the above website as they become available.

CONDITIONS FOR USE: A Use Agreement Form must be signed prior to using the data. The form can be obtained at the CFDR office.