Changes in Family Structure and Welfare Participation Since the 1960s: The Role of Legal Services

Working Paper No. 26238 This paper evaluates the effects of the War on Poverty’s Legal Services Program (LSP) on family structure and welfare participation. LSPs provided subsidized legal assistance to poor communities, focusing on divorce and welfare access. We use a difference-in-differences resea...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:NBER Working Paper Series 2019-09, p.26238
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attorneys
Birth rate
Divorce
Economic theory
Family structure
Poverty
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Working Paper No. 26238 This paper evaluates the effects of the War on Poverty’s Legal Services Program (LSP) on family structure and welfare participation. LSPs provided subsidized legal assistance to poor communities, focusing on divorce and welfare access. We use a difference-in-differences research design based on the rollout of the program to 251 counties from 1965 to 1975. We find temporary increases in divorce and persistent increases in welfare participation and nonmarital birth rates. Nonmarital births rose because marriage rates fell, not because birth rates rose. Expanded access to legal institutions thus contributed, directly and indirectly, to changes in family structure in the 1960s.
ISSN:0898-2937
DOI:10.3386/w26238