Peter Brandon

• University at Albany, State University of New York

We examine the effects of the 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act's (ACA) prohibition of preexisting conditions exclusions for children on job mobility among parents. We use a difference-in-difference approach, comparing pre-post policy changes in job mobility among privately-insured parents of children with chronic health conditions vs...

This study offers knowledge about factors associated with a key type of family change, namely, two- to-three-generation household transformations, which are poorly understood, despite increasing numbers of three-generation households, especially ones headed by females. Using a representative sample of 5,874 Australian children, results showed that...

Because of population aging, many governments are placing greater responsibility on older persons to fund their retirement. Within this context, older persons' financial self-sufficiency during times of stress is important to understand. Using data from the 2002 Australian General Social Survey, this article reports on the prevalence of older perso...

This research examines the relationship between disabilities in families and returns to welfare. Past studies of welfare recidivism have long theorized that disabilities played a central role in returns to welfare among former recipients, but lacked data to test the hypothesis. Hypothesis tests support the theory that both child and maternal disabi...

Using data from Australia, health behavior outcomes and the social connectedness of adolescents in immigrant families are contrasted with the outcomes of adolescents in non-immigrant families. Findings suggest that first and second generation adolescents are less likely to drink alcohol and lack social support than third generation adolescents, but...

Changes in families over the past thirty years have created methodological challenges for research on family variation. Some argue that standard survey methods used for collecting data on families have been outpaced by the transformation of families and hence estimates of family variation are maccurate and opportunities for cross-country comparison...

Using the Australian Time Use survey (TUS), this study examined time allocation among working parents raising children with disabilities. Findings showed that raising children with disabilities reduced the time working mothers had for leisure activities, but increased the time for socializing activities. Consistent with the literature, the latter e...

Using data from the Australian Workplace Industrial Relations Survey, this study provides timely evidence on the effects of on-site child care at the wolkplace and employer-provided family leave on worker absenteeism, turnover, and productivity. The study found that workplaces with on-site child care compared with workplaces with no on-site child c...

This study examined the allocation of time to activities among older Australians not in the labor force. Using the 1997 Time Use Survey, findings show that older Australians are actively contributing to their communities in contrast to the outdated depiction of them as dependent and detached. Although their contributions occur outside of the formal...

Considerable increases in the numbers of children living with grandparents have prompted concerns over their economic well-being and grandparents’ use of welfare programs. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, I profile the economic well-being of children living with grandparents and estimate the likelihood of receiving tw...

The dramatic changes in family composition have profound implications for studying relationships of children to other adults in a household. However, methods for studying such relationships have been outpaced by the transformation of families and thus today’s studies, for example, often inaccurately assess whether a child lives with one or two pare...

This study examined the child care arrangements of children in immigrant families. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the study found great diversity in the child care arrangements of children according to their nativity status. Children in immigrant families, especially those in low-income immigrant families, we...

This research examines the relationship between disabilities in families and exits from welfare. Controlling for variations in characteristics known to be associated with welfare exits, this study investigates and documents that specific configurations of disabilities in families are also strongly associated with reduced rates of welfare exits. The...

Little is known about the determinants of out-of-school childcare arrangements of school-age children. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study compares out-of-school childcare arrangements of children in single-mother and two-parent working families and examines the factors influencing their childcare decisions. F...

Little is known about the living arrangements of first- and second-generation immigrant children. Using data from the Current Population Survey and a multivariate approach, I compared living arrangements of immigrant children to U.S.-born white children with U.S.-born parents. Findings show, except for foreign-born black and some Hispanic children,...

This paper revisits state intervention in families on behalf of children rather than on behalf of parents. Drawing upon the theory of comparative advantage, the study argues that the reported rise in child abuse and neglect results from parents' lacking the absolute minimum levels of skills needed to sustain a family, not from parents' lacking altr...

This paper revisits state intervention in families on behalf of children rather than on behalf of parents. Drawing upon the theory of comparative advantage, the study argues that the reported rise in child abuse and neglect results from parents' lacking the absolute minimum levels of skills needed to sustain a family, not from parents' lacking altr...

This research examines the claim that states' newfound autonomy to devise their own welfare systems will lead to more intergenerational family dissolution. Critics of welfare reform argue that children residing in states with lower welfare benefits will be more at risk of living apart from parents, as some parents will lack sufficient income to rai...

Objective. This research examines the claim that states' newfound autonomy to devise their own welfare systems will lead to more intergenerational family dissolution. Critics of welfare reform argue that children residing in states with lower welfare benefits will be more at risk of living apart from parents, as some parents will lack sufficient in...

De plus en plus d'enfants vivent dans des foyers dans lesquels les deux parents sont absents. Quels sont les facteurs qui rendent compte de cette tendance a la dissolution familiale? C'est dans cette perspective que les A. repondent aux critiques de leur article precedent point par point. Si les decideurs politiques ont besoin de donnees factuelles...

This study analyzed welfare receipt among children across alternative living arrangements. Findings suggest more variation in patterns of public assistance receipt than previously reported, and that these variations are affected by the presence of cohabiting fathers. Results argue for more precise indicators of children's living arrangements so tha...

Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this study investigates factors associated with utilization of child care among working mothers raising children with disabilities. Results provide a national-level description of the use of nonparental child care among working mothers raising children with disabilities. Multivariate a...

This study will examine public assistance participation among grandchildren living in grandparent-headed households. Over the last 15 years, there has been a large increase in the number of children living in households headed by grandparents. In the last 8 years, the most disadvantaged grandparent-headed families have grown the fastest: namely, gr...

Calls for less government spending and the perception that immigrants disproportionately use public assistance have contributed to the largest overhaul of the U.S. welfare system in 60 years. The new rules affect all needy persons, including immigrants. Drawing on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and using a multivariate ap...

Critics of welfare reform claim that children will leave their mother's care in states that restrict benefits because mothers will lack sufficient income to raise children. This article investigates these claims and the relationship between the generosity of welfare benefits and children's living arrangements. I found that mother-child separations...

Little is known about why parents choose kin-provided child care and less is known about how kin-provided child care is related to other forms of in-kind support from relatives close-at-hand. Previous models of the choice of kin-provided child care assumed that the presence of other forms of in-kind support from relatives nearby was inconsequential...

This paper considers state interventions in families on behalf of children whose parents are negligent. The state faces an 'agency problem' when it intervenes on behalf of neglected children because it cannot fully monitor families; for instance, it can give cash transfers to poor parents, but it cannot observe them and make sure that they spend th...

This study investigates determinants of self-care arrangements among school-aged children. The study finds that mothers'hours of work increase the likelihood of self-care arrangements. However, accompanying results suggest that maternal work and use of self-care does not imply school children are unsupervised. Effects of kin, older siblings, the co...

This study investigates whether financial agreements between husbands and wives, the cost of child care, mothers' wages, and sources of income, rather than just aggregate income, affect a mother's decision to use child care. This study finds that for working mothers, the price of child care is what matters, not their wages; for nonemployed mothers,...

The potential effects of raising the minimum wage on the earnings of mothers moving from welfare to work were examined by analyzing the differences that existed in the late 1980s in the various states' minimum wage rates and data from three waves of the Survey of Income and Program Participation for the years 1985-1990 (during which time 13 states...

In this paper, we propose a theoretical model to study the effect of income insecurity of parents and offspring on the child's residential choice. Parents are partially altruistic toward their children and will provide financial help to an independent child when her income is low relative to the parents'. We find that children of more altruistic pa...

Although high school dropout rates have been declining among members of virtually all major demographic groups, the dropout rates of single mothers remain high. This is troubling, given that the author finds that over the last quarter century single mothers who do not graduate from high school have been more likely to go on welfare than single moth...

This paper develops and evaluates a model of a mother's choice of kin-provided child care. Little is known about the choice of kin-provided child care, particularly within the context of intrafamily in-kind transfers. Despite this, kin-provided child care is extensively used, and its use affects family economic well-being. Using data from the Natio...