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Welfare dependency. Welfare dependency was measured by the total months the
respondent received AFDC/TANF between February 1989 and the sampling period, September -
November 1998. The source of these data was administrative records maintained by the Illinois
Department of Human Services.
Sociodemographic factors. The analyses included those sociodemographic
characteristics known to be associated with employment outcomes and depressive symptoms
among the welfare population. These include region of residence, gender, race/ethnicity, age,
marital status, number of biological children in the home, and education (Harris, Boisjoly, &
Duncan, 1997; Heneghan et al., 1998; Danziger et al., 2000a).
Results
Baseline Characteristics of the Study Population
Table 1 presents characteristics of the study population for the variables used in the
present analyses as measured at Wave 1. Ninety percent of the population resided in Cook
County (which includes the city of Chicago), 97 percent was female, 79 percent was African
American, the majority (68 percent) was under age 35, 64 percent had never been married, and
the average number of children was 2.6. A majority of the study population was comprised of
long-term welfare recipients. Since it is well known that any cross-sectional sample of the
welfare population will be disproportionately represented by long-term rather than short-term
recipients, it is not surprising to find that the majority of respondents are long-term “stayers”
(Bane & Ellwood, 1986).
As shown in Table 1, about 50 percent of the study population reported working for pay
at the time of the Wave 1 survey. About 42 percent of the study population lacked a high school
diploma or GED at the Wave 1 survey. Many respondents also faced health or family-related
difficulties. About 10 percent reported experiencing domestic violence in the past year.
Convention