We assess the impact on savings behavior of several different 401(k) plan features, including automatic enrollment, automatic cash distributions, employer matching provisions, eligibility requirements, investment options, and financial education. We also present new survey evidence on individual...

Most of the public discussion and academic analyses of nonmarital birthrates focus on women's fertility intentions and welfare. In contrast, we argue that stricter child support enforcement may lower nonmarital birthrates by raising the costs of fatherhood for men. The analysis is based on...

Accidents are the leading cause of death and injury among children in the United States, far surpassing diseases as a health threat. We examine the effects of child care regulation on rates of accidental injury using both micro data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and Vital...

Recognizing that most poor families are single-parent families, the federal welfare reform law of 1996 emphasized the responsibility of both parents to support their children. In addition to strengthening the child support enforcement system, the law included several provisions to decrease...

Child Support is an important source of income for single mothers and their children. Given the growth in single mother families and given their high rates of poverty, child support payments are of growing interest to social scientists and demographers that care about inequality and child...

This paper uses data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the frequency of parent-child interaction in several areas across a range of family types. Overall, we find that few individual characteristics of mothers or fathers are consistently associated with how often...

A vast number of studies have examined the predictors of marriage and marital dissolution, and more recent studies have explored entry into and exit from cohabiting unions. At the same time, much attention has been paid to the rise in nonmarital childbearing and single motherhood. Yet, far less...

Beginning around 1990, disability rates of children, as reported by their parents, began to increase. At the same time, a major expansion of Medicaid eligibility to children outside of the welfare population was taking place. Data from multiple panels of the Survey of Income and Program...

The 1996 Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act requires welfare recipients to look for work, has made it much more difficult for nonworking recipients to remain on the welfare rolls, and has made it easier for them to continue to receive welfare benefits if they work...

Retirement savings decisions should depend on expectations of Social Security retirement income. Persons may be uncertain of their future Social Security benefits for several reasons, including uncertainty about their future labor earnings, the formula now determining social security benefits,...