Employment and welfare reform: The relationship between occupational welfare and job tenure of former welfare recipients.

In 1996, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 was passed. This act replaced AFDC with TANF, imposed lifetime limits on continued eligibility, and required employment for all participants. Despite the high profile of welfare-to-work, direct employer involvement and outreach was overlooked in this legislation. This exclusion continued a deleterious effect on the low job tenure (less than six months) of former welfare recipients, which is about one-tenth that of the overall population of working women in the United States. This research was initiated to investigate the various occupational welfare roles that employers have in prolonging job tenure of former welfare recipients. Organizational socialization theory provided the framework for the research. It includes the pre-entry phase, where job preparation and pre-employment training are addressed. It also includes the encounter phase, a period encompassing the first six months of employment, when the employer first offers fringe benefits. Using 1998 employment data from the 1979--1998 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, access to fringe benefits, among other variables, were analyzed for their effect on job tenure using a post-welfare sample and a comparative sample of women without a welfare history. The findings suggest access to employer provided fringe benefits does prolong job tenure, particularly through the availability of health and life insurance, retirement, and parental leave. Of non-employment variables, education had the greatest effect on job tenure. These data suggest higher levels of educational attainment have a significant and causal relationship with longer job tenure. As a means of ensuring welfare reform's success and in light of lifetime limits on welfare eligibility, several recommendations are made based on this research. Employer partnerships should be encouraged with all state and local governments. The private sector, particularly the small employer, employs the majority of former welfare recipients; as such they too stand to gain significantly from such a relationship. Provision of pre-employment training and post-high school education should also be supported. Together these strategies can contribute to an overall increase in wage levels, fringe benefit availability, job security, and permanent, instead of serial employment, for former welfare recipients.PhDOccupational psychologyPsychologySocial SciencesSocial workUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/131721/2/3057936.pd