2004 Poverty Research Small Grants
Funded research
How Do Child Welfare Policies and Economic Conditions Affect Medicaid and TANF Take-Up Rates among Kinship Care Families?
Christopher A. Swann, Assistant Professor of Economics, State University of New York, Stony Brook. Michelle S. Sylvester, Assistant Professor of Economics, University of North Carolina, Greensboro.
Description
Relatives are the primary caregivers for children whose parents cannot provide them with a safe and nurturing home environment. Many children in these "kinship care" arrangements live in poverty and face other hardships. Even though a number of income assistance programs and child welfare services are available to support kinship care families, many of these families do not take advantage of them. In particular, take-up rates for TANF child-only grants and Medicaid are low for children in kinship care, despite their categorical eligibility.
The objective of this application is to increase our understanding of why TANF and Medicaid take-up rates for children in kinship care are low and how these take-up rates are affected by economic conditions and child welfare policy. We will achieve this objective by pursuing the following specific aims: 1) Examine how child welfare policies affect the decision to participate in the TANF and Medicaid programs; 2) Investigate the impact of economic conditions on TANF and Medicaid take-up among kinship care families; and 3) Analyze how TANF and Medicaid take-up rates are influenced by caregiver and child characteristics.
Knowing how child welfare policies, economic conditions, and individual characteristics affect TANF and Medicaid take-up is critical for several reasons. First, it will help ensure that children in kinship care arrangements, many of whom live in poverty and face other hardships, receive the support they need. In addition, examining the relationship between state policies and service receipt is important because child welfare officials are increasingly placing children with kin caregivers. Finally, the recent economic downturn has resulted in significant budget shortfalls, making it unlikely that additional services will be provided to assist kinship care families and straining the informal systems that families rely on during difficult times.
The data for our analysis come from the National Survey of America's Families and cover the period 1997 to 2002 - a period in which economic conditions and child welfare policies changed considerably. We use two complementary approaches to investigate take-up rates by kin caregivers during this period. First, we use state level data and a difference-in-difference strategy to study how changes in policies, economic conditions, and caregiver characteristics over time and across states affect changes in state-year specific take-up rates. Second, using data on individual children and their caregivers, we employ probit models to explore how child welfare policies, economic conditions and kinship care family characteristics affect participation in TANF and Medicaid at the individual level.
