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Childhood Abuse and Welfare Use

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Abstract

Policies aimed at reducing welfare use focus solely on adults, yet welfare users very often report experiences of childhood abuse. Such abuse is known to have long-term psychological effects and may set the stage for later welfare use. This study uses a random sample of poor women to determine how a history of childhood abuse relates to the probability of receiving cash and in-kind assistance over a five-year period. It also investigate whether childhood abuse correlates with the length of receipt among program users. Women experiencing both physical and sexual abuse during childhood were 16–25 percentage points more likely than others to use both cash and in-kind programs as adults. Conditional on program use, there was no relation of childhood abuse to the extent of program use during the study period.

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  1. VA Palo Alto Health Care System, 795 Willow Rd (152 MPD), Menlo Park, CA, 94025, USA

    Mark W. Smith

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  1. Mark W. Smith
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Correspondence to Mark W. Smith.

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Smith, M.W. Childhood Abuse and Welfare Use. Rev Econ Household 3, 435–452 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-005-4943-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11150-005-4943-z

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