Swimming Against the Tide: Connecting Low-Income Women to Living Wage Jobs

Survival analysis and qualitative data are used to explore outcomes for 399 women in a job training and educational program geared to help women replace welfare or poverty-rate jobs with living wage jobs. While prior research has focused on aggregate findings and limited outcomes, this study looks at the program context and the participant characteristics which relate to incremental as well as ultimate employment goals. The paper shows why a focus on multiple, sequential outcomes is necessary to accurately evaluate Human Capital Development (HCD) model effectiveness, the long-term effectiveness of welfare reform, and the ultimate goal of helping families escape poverty.