3rd Annual De Jong Lecture in Social Demography

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Was Welfare Reform a Success? How Minority Families are Faring

Presented by Andrew J. Cherlin, Johns Hopkins University

Andrew J. Cherlin is Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University. In 1989-1990 he was Chair of the Family Section, and in 1995-1996 Chair of the Population Section, of the American Sociological Association. In 1999, he was President of the Population Association of America. In 2001, he received the Olivia S. Nordberg Award for Excellence in Writing in the Population Sciences. In 2003 he received the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association. In 2005-2006 he was a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. Dr. Cherlin’s research interests include the well-being of parents and children in low income families and the changing nature of marriage and family life over the past century. He is the principal investigator of the Three-City Study, an interdisciplinary study of low-income children and their caregivers in the post-welfare-reform era. His recent articles include “The Deinstitutionalization of American Marriage,” in the Journal of Marriage and Family (2004); “Family Instability and Child Well-Being,” in the American Sociological Review (2007); and “Welfare Reform in the mid-2000s: How African-American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities are Faring,” which is forthcoming in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Dr. Cherlin’s books include Public and Private Families: An Introduction (fifth edition, McGraw-Hill, 2008) and The Marriage Go-Round, forthcoming in spring 2009 from Alfred A. Knopf. Dr. Cherlin’s lecture is based on the following paper: Cherlin, Andrew, Bianca Frogner, David Ribar, and Robert Moffitt. 2009. "Welfare Reform in the mid-2000s: How African-American and Hispanic Families in Three Cities are Faring." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 621 (January).

A decade after the landmark welfare reform legislation, how are low-income families who have left welfare doing? Dr. Andrew J. Cherlin, of Johns Hopkins University, reports on results from the “Three-City Study”, a study of over 400 low-income families in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio, most of them African-American or Hispanic, to assess their well-being in the post-welfare-reform era. At the start of the study in 1999, the families were receiving welfare; but all of them had left the welfare program by the end of the study in 2005. He traces their economic pathways during the six-year period and shows the difference that employment, race, and ethnicity made in their strategies to respond to welfare reform.

Discussants:

Dr. Lisa Gennetian is Senior Research Director, Policy Evaluation Project, in the Economic Studies program at the Brookings Institution. Over the past eight years Dr. Gennetian has led evaluations of several large-scale experimental welfare and work programs including Minnesota’s Family Investment Program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies. She is also directing research under the Next Generation Project, a collaboration that began in 1999 between MDRC and an interdisciplinary team of academic researchers, examining cross-cutting effects of welfare, work and income on children and families. Dr. Gennetian is currently co-managing the long-term evaluation of a housing mobility experiment, the Moving to Opportunity program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. Her research focuses on poverty, income security policies, and child care, and their influences on children’s development.

Dr. Paul R. Amato is Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Family Studies at Penn State. Dr. Amato’s research focuses on marital quality, the causes and consequences of divorce, and children’s well-being. In 2006, he received the Distinguished Career Award from the Family Section of the American Sociological Association. In 1994, 2000, and 2002 he received the Reuben Hill Award from the National Council on Family Relations for the best article published during the previous year to combine research and theory on the family. His most recent book (with Alan Booth, David Johnson, and Stacy Rogers), Alone Together: How Marriage in America is Changing, was published in 2007 by Harvard University Press.

Program:

12:45 Registration

1:30 Welcome and Opening Remarks - Rukmalie Jayakody, Associate Director, Population Research Institute; Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies and Demography, Penn State

1:35 Was Welfare Reform a Success? How Minority Families are Faring - Andrew J. Cherlin, Benjamin H. Griswold III Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at Johns Hopkins University. Introduced by Valarie King, Associate Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Human Development & Family Studies, Penn State

2:30 Break

2:40 Discussants

Lisa Gennetian, Senior Research Director, Policy Evaluation Project in Economic Studies, Brookings Institution. Introduced by Chalandra Bryant, Associate Professor of Human Development and Family Studies, Penn State

Paul Amato, Distinguished Professor of Sociology, Demography, and Family Studies at Penn State. Introduced by David Shapiro, Professor of Economics, Women's Studies and Demography, Penn State

3:30 Floor Discussion - Presider: Leif Jensen, Professor of Rural Sociology and Demography, Penn State

4:00 Reception – Nittany Lion Inn Alumni Lounge. You are invited to share refreshments and conversation with lecture participants and attendees.

Lecture Sponsors

The De Jong Lecture is supported by the Gordon F. and Caroline M. De Jong Lectureship in Social Demography Endowment, administered jointly (and supplemented as necessary) by the Department of Sociology and the Population Research Institute at Penn State.

View Previous De Jong Lectures

Gordon F. De Jong is Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Demography, Director of the Graduate Program in Demography, and Senior Scientist with the Population Research Institute at Penn State. Caroline M. De Jong, a former middle school teacher, has been involved in numerous community, church, and university-related organizations including the American Association of University Women, Stay-and-Play Nursery School, Presbyterian Women, and the Centre County Board of Elections.