Turnover in the AFDC Population: An Event History Analysis

The control group of families with female heads, from the Denver Income Maintenance Experiment, is utilized in this analysis of AFDC turnover. This study uses event history techniques, a methodology that is more appropriate for exploring welfare dynamics than the logit approach of earlier work. Increases in age and the wage have significant, negative effects on the rate of entering AFDC. A higher guarantee raises this rate significantly. Age and the guarantee have significant effects, with opposite signs, on the exit rate. Other variables are not systematically related to turnover. The estimates are applied to projected changes in lengths of time spent on and off AFDC and in AFDC caseloads due to changes in the explanatory variables.