Suchergebnisse

In this paper we examine employment and child‐care choices of two‐parent families with young children in the United States and Canada, using a pooled data set based on recent national surveys in each country. We find that the employment and child‐care choices of Canadian families are similar to those of U.S. families. Estimates of a model of employment and child‐care choices indicate significant effects of child‐care subsidies, child‐care prices, and wage rates on employment and child‐care choices. However, none of these factors helps to explain the differences in employment and child‐care choices between the two countries.Ce mémoire examine le choix de l'emploi et du soin des enfants dans les familles où il y deux parents aux Etats‐Unis et au Canada en utilisant des données d'études récentes dans les deux pays. Il appert que les choix des familles canadiennes sont semblables à ceux des familles américaines. Les calibrations d'un modèle de ces choix montrent les effets significatifs des subventions au soin des enfants, du prix des soins des enfants, et des taux de salaires sur ces choix. Cependant, aucun de ces facteurs n'explique les diffrences dans les patterns de choix entre les deux pays.

Evaluations of government-funded training programs often combine results from similar operations in multiple sites. Findings inevitably vary. It is common to relate site-to-site variations in outcomes to variations in program design, participant characteristics, and the local environment. Frequently, such connections are constructed in a narrative synthesis of multisite results. This article uses findings from the evaluations of California's Greater Avenues for Independence (GAIN) program and the National Evaluation of Welfare-to-Work Strategies (NEWWS) to illustrate why it is important to question the legitimacy of such syntheses. The discussion is carried out using a simple multilevel evaluation model that incorporates models of both individual outcomes within sites and variation in program effects across sites. The results indicate that tempting generalizations about GAIN and NEWWS effects are statistically unjustified but that significant progress might be made in identifying the determinants of program effects in future demonstrations with some changes in evaluation strategy.

This article describes how microsimulation analysis was used to help design a social experiment currently being conducted in two provinces in Canada. To the authors' knowledge, microsimu lation has never been used before for this purpose, although the technique has been used to assist development of a couple of nonexperimental demonstration programs. For the Canadian experiment, the microsimulation analysis was used primarily for choosing among alternative program models and for refining the selected model, but it had other important uses, such as helping to project the potential financial liability to the Canadian government. The authors conclude that microsimulation should be given serious consideration in the design of future experiments, whenever an appropriate simulation model is available.

This paper describes five new welfare reform programs being tested in six areas of the United States and Canada. These programs all use financial incentives to encourage selfsufficiency among welfare recipients. Some programs also provide employment and training services. A microsimulation model is used to predict the impacts of the two most generous programs: the Canadian Self‐Sufficiency Project (SSP) and the Minnesota Family Investment Program (MFIP). The simulation results suggest that SSP and MFIP will modestly increase the number of welfare recipients who work. However, because SSP has a fulltime work requirement and MFIP does not, only SSP is predicted to generate an increase in fulltime employment