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Objective. This study determines if a relationship exists between a mother's employment and the activities in which her adolescent children participate after school.Methods. The author uses panel data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation with logit and fixed‐effects logit models to estimate this relationship.Results. Fixed‐effects models suggest a positive relationship between maternal employment and participation in lessons after school for the adolescent children of married women and also for those with at least a high school education. Maternal employment is also positively related to sports participation for the adolescent children of unmarried mothers.Conclusions. First, this article shows the importance of accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in inquiries into the links between maternal employment and adolescent outcomes. Second, it suggests that high‐socioeconomic‐status mothers may use after‐school activities, particularly lessons, as a form of after‐school care, while unmarried mothers may use sports.

Objective This study determines if a relationship exists between a mother's employment and the activities in which her adolescent children participate after school. Methods The author uses panel data from the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation with logit and fixed-effects logit models to estimate this relationship. Results Fixed-effects models suggest a positive relationship between maternal employment and participation in lessons after school for the adolescent children of married women and also for those with at least a high school education. Maternal employment is also positively related to sports participation for the adolescent children of unmarried mothers. Conclusions First, this article shows the importance of accounting for unobserved heterogeneity in inquiries into the links between maternal employment and adolescent outcomes. Second, it suggests that high-socioeconomic-status mothers may use after-school activities, particularly lessons, as a form of after-school care, while unmarried mothers may use sports. Adapted from the source document.

Background: While randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are typically considered the gold standard of program evaluation, they are infrequently chosen by public sector leaders, defined as government and nonprofit decision-makers, when an impact evaluation is required. Objectives: This study provides descriptive evidence on RCT aversion among public sector leaders and attempts to understand what factors affect their likelihood of choosing RCTs for impact evaluations. Research Design: The authors ask if public sector leaders follow similar preference patterns found among non-public sector leaders when choosing either an RCT or a quasi-experimental design and use a survey experiment to determine which factors affect the RCT choice. Subjects: The study sample includes 2050 public sector leaders and a comparison group of 2060 respondents who do not lead public sector organizations. Measures: The primary outcome measure is selecting an RCT as the preferred evaluation option. Results: When asked to make a decision about an impact evaluation, the majority of people do not choose an RCT. While also averse to RCTs, public sector leaders are about 13% more likely to prefer a RCT to a quasi-experimental evaluation compared to the general population. Public sector leaders are less likely to use RCTs for evaluations of more intense interventions, potentially because they are perceived to be superior to the options available for the control group. Conclusion: Funders should be aware that when given a choice, public sector leaders prefer other options to RCTs. Greater awareness of the benefits of RCTs could increase their use in the public sector.

The United States has a number of social policies that were designed explicitly to provide options and supports for individuals related to their family formation decisions, such as the Title X National Family Planning Program and the Healthy Marriage Initiative. At the same time, because social policies can have considerable implications for the populations they target, we have long known that government policy can impact family structure and individuals' fertility decisions even when such an impact was not the policy's stated objective. This article reviews both theoretical and empirical literature asking to what extent United States' social policy affects the complexity of families. Specifically, we review the literature on divorce and custody laws, means-tested transfer programs, and policies designed to provide information and services related to family formation. We report findings, and discuss common themes across the literature and identify important gaps in knowledge.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. Department of Agriculture waived the certification interview for the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP), substantially reducing the administrative burden associated with SNAP application for both applicants and agencies. Using primary policy data collected from ten county-administered states, we find that only 27% of counties implemented the interview waiver. Further, models of local decision-making indicate that public health risk, demographic vulnerability and economic need, and political orientation in the county were not statistically significant predictors of waiver use. Finally, we find that the waiver choice did affect SNAP caseloads: using difference-in-difference models that make use of the natural experiment, we find that counties that adopted the SNAP interview waivers experienced a 5% increase in SNAP caseloads.