Carrots over Sticks? Mothers' Pensions and Child Labor in the Early 20th Century U.S. Issue 2 (23rd March 2023)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- Carrots over Sticks? Mothers' Pensions and Child Labor in the Early 20th Century U.S. Issue 2 (23rd March 2023)
- Main Title:
- Carrots over Sticks? Mothers' Pensions and Child Labor in the Early 20th Century U.S.
- Authors:
- Anderson, Elisabeth
Kornrich, Sabino
Abdelhadi, Eman - Abstract:
- Abstract: While existing research suggests that nineteenth-century child labor laws largely failed to significantly reduce children's workforce participation, we examine whether policies that tackled the problem by providing aid – rather than by penalizing work – were more effective. Between 1910 and 1920, forty U.S. states enacted mothers' pension programs, giving needy "deserving" mothers, typically widows, cash aid to support their dependent children. One purpose of the programs was to reduce child labor. However, we find no negative relationship between child labor and the generosity of states' mothers' pension laws. Furthermore, we find no negative relationship between child labor and county-level mothers' pension generosity, in terms of expenditures, in the seven states for which we have data. We attribute this to the small size of the pensions as well as the programs' limited coverage and general lack of conditionality on children's behaviors, such as attending school or not engaging in paid work. We also note states' and counties' limited administrative capacity to enforce eligibility requirements, such as school attendance, where these existed.
- Is Part Of:
- Social science history. Volume 47:Issue 2(2023)
- Journal:
- Social science history
- Issue:
- Volume 47:Issue 2(2023)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 47, Issue 2 (2023)
- Year:
- 2023
- Volume:
- 47
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2023-0047-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 217
- Page End:
- 245
- Publication Date:
- 2023-03-23
- Subjects:
- child labor -- mothers' pensions -- child welfare -- welfare state
Social sciences -- Periodicals
Social sciences
Electronic journals
Periodicals
300.9 - Journal URLs:
- https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/social-science-history ↗
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/ssh/ ↗
http://www.jstor.org/journals/01455532.html ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org ↗
http://firstsearch.oclc.org/journal=0145-5532;screen=info;ECOIP ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1017/ssh.2022.33 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0145-5532
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library HMNTS - ELD Digital store
- Ingest File:
- 27015.xml