This proposal for four years of support to continue a longitudinal investigation, called the Women's Employment Study, of a random sample of single mothers in Genesee County. The study was prompted by the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act of 1996 that replaced the Aid to Families With Dependent Children Program with a state-managed program requiring most welfare mothers to enter the labor force within a two-year span. The study was designed to track the experiences and the well-being of women as they made the transition from welfare to work. There is considerable debate as to whether the consequences of this transition are positive or negative and little is known about the conditions that might make it one or the other. These changes in the law provide what is seen as a naturalistic opportunity to illuminate issues that have important policy implications as well as being of scientific interest. Two waves of data have already been completed, the first in 1997, the second in 1998, and a third is planned for the fall of 1999 and a fourth a year later. The initial sample was comprised of 735 single mothers 18 to 54 years of age who were randomly selected from welfare rolls. The initial response rate was over 86 percent and attrition at Wave 2 was remarkably low, only 4 percent. The requested support would be to augment the third wave and to fund the fourth. Each wave has and will continue to included repeated questions about financial and other social stressors, psychosocial information, and future waves will include biological markers of stress and physiological functioning as well as more queries about acute and chronic stressors and indicators of health. The investigation will continue to observe the effects of income and work trajectories on psychosocial life and on mental and physical health; to estimate whether social support, spirituality, community resources and programs, cushion the effects of the transition; and to assess the biological processes that link and otherwise interact with income and work trajectories in affecting health outcomes.
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