Filling holes in the safety net? Material hardship and subjective well-being among disability benefit applicants and recipients after the 1996 welfare reform.

Some of the rapid recent growth in disability income receipt in the United States is attributable to single mothers post-welfare reform. Yet, we know little about how disability benefit receipt affects the economic well-being of single mother families, or how unsuccessful disability applicants fare. We compare disability recipients to unsuccessful applicants and those who never applied among current and former welfare recipients, and examine how application and receipt affect material hardships and subjective measures of well-being.

Utilization of infertility treatments: the effects of insurance mandates.

Over the last several decades, both delay of childbearing and fertility problems have become increasingly common among women in developed countries. At the same time, technological changes have made many more options available to individuals experiencing fertility problems. However, these technologies are expensive, and only 25% of health insurance plans in the United States cover infertility treatment.

Risk preferences and the timing of marriage and childbearing.

The existing literature on marriage and fertility decisions pays little attention to the roles played by risk preferences and uncertainty. However given uncertainty regarding the availability of suitable marriage partners, the ability to contracept, and the ability to conceive, women's risk preferences might be expected to play an important role in marriage and fertility timing decisions. By using data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), I find that measured risk preferences have a significant effect on the timing of both marriage and fertility.

Effects of infertility insurance mandates on fertility.

Infertility currently affects over 6 million individuals in the United States. While most health insurance plans nationwide do not cover infertility diagnoses or treatments, to date 15 states have enacted some form of infertility insurance mandate. In this paper, I use data from the Vital Statistics Detail Natality Data and Census population estimates to examine whether these state-level mandates were successful in increasing fertility rates.

Health disparities and infertility: impacts of state-level insurance mandates.

Objective: To determine whether important racial, ethnic, or socioeconomic status (SES) health disparities exist in infertility, impaired fecundity, or infertility treatment.

Design: Four waves of the National Survey of Family Growth (NSFG) were pooled. Measures were compared across various race/ethnicity, education, and age groups.