Social Work Commons^™

Linking Tax Refunds And Low-Cost Bank Accounts, Sondra G. Beverly, Jennifer Tescher, David Marzahl

Center for Social Development Research

This paper was commissioned for Inclusion in Asset Building: Research and Policy Symposium, an event hosted in September 2000 by the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis. A version was subsequently developed for publication in Inclusion in the American Dream: Assets, Poverty, and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2005). The papert presents findings from an evaluation of the Extra Credit Savings Program (ECSP). Piloted in Chicago by ShoreBank and the Center for Law and Human Services, the program was designed to connect unbanked households to mainstream financial services and to facilitate ongoing asset accumulation in low-income …

The Impacts Of Ida Programs On Family Savings And Asset-Holdings, Michael Stegman, Robert Faris, Oswaldo Urdapilleta Gonzales

Center for Social Development Research

This paper was commissioned for Inclusion in Asset Building: Research and Policy Symposium, an event hosted in September 2000 by the Center for Social Development at Washington University in St. Louis. A version was subsequently developed for publication in Inclusion in the American Dream: Assets, Poverty, and Public Policy (Oxford University Press, 2005). This paper supplements research on the national Individual Development Account (IDA) pilot known as the Downpayment on the American Dream Demonstration (ADD). Its subject is the financial impact of ADD on the net savings and assets of program participants, and it examines what ADD participants would have …

Assets, Race, And Educational Choices, Tom Shapiro, Heather Beth Johnson

Center for Social Development Research

Assets, Race, and Educational Choices

Saving And Asset-Accumulation Strategies Used By Low-Income Individuals, Amanda Moore Mcbride, Sondra Beverly, Michael Sherraden, Margaret Sherraden, Lissa Johnson, Mark Schreiner

Center for Social Development Research

This paper presents quantitative and qualitative data regarding the saving and asset-accumulation strategies used by low-income participants in Individual Development Account programs(IDAs). the results of a cross-sectional survey with 298 IDA participants and case studies with 15 IDA participants—the first methods that assessed saving behavior among this population—demonstrate that low-income individuals use psychological and behavioral strategies to save, deposit, and maintain assets. the most frequentlyused strategies are behavioral saving strategiesfor increasing the efficiency of spending (e.g., shopping more carefully for food) and for reducing consumption (e.g., spending less on leisure). Qualitative results indicate that individuals also use goals and mental …

Who Are The Asset Poor? Levels, Trends, And Composition, 1983-1998, Robert Haveman, Edward N. Wolff

Center for Social Development Research

Who Are the Asset Poor? Levels, Trends, and Composition, 1983-1998

The Subsidy Dependence Index And Recent Attempts To Adjust It, Mark Schreiner, Jacob Yaron

Center for Social Development Research

The Subsidy Dependence Index (SDI) is the most common way to measure the importance of public support for Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). We present the SDI and show its equivalence to a subsidy-adjusted measure of return on equity. We then review recent attempts to adjust the SDI. As a whole, the recent measures are either meaningless or answer unimportant questions. Their use does not lead to a better understanding of the social cost of a DFI.

Downpayments On The American Dream Policy Demonstration, Michael Sherraden, Deborah Page-Adams, Lissa Johnson, Edward Scanlon, Jamie Curley, Min Zhan, Alfreda Bady, James Hinterlong

Center for Social Development Research

This report presents findings from the first annual evaluation of the American Dream Demonstration, a multiyear, nationwide test of Individual Development Accounts. Covering the period from the demonstration’s start-up through June 30, 1998, the report details insights from an implementation assessment and from preliminary analyses of monitoring data.

Landholding And Household Development: What Do We Know?, Min Zhan, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

This overview of research on effects of land ownership focuses on the economic, personal, and social effects of land ownership of small-scale farmers, often in developing nations, under the assumption that the household is the primary unit of production. A search for relevant studies from different fields of inquiry—economic development, rural sociology, family studies, anthropology, social work, medicine, and others—finds 39 empirical studies addressing the effects of land ownership. Sorting these studies into categories for discussion, we present the existing research on effects of land ownership on (1) level of consumption, (2) economic security, (3) investment, (4) women’s status, (5) …

Factors Influencing African American Youths' Decisions To Stay In School, Larry E. Davis, Sharon Johnson, Julie Miller-Cribbs, Stephen Cronen, Leslie Scheuler-Whitaker

Center for Social Development Research

Little attention has been given to the non-problematic development and positive life decisions of African American youth. This paper reports findings of 231 African American students. The goal of the study was to assess factors which contribute to their academic grade point averages and intentions to stay in school. The conceptual model employed in this study was the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB) which contends that intentions to carryout a behavior is a function of Attitude towards the behavior, Social Normative support for undertaking the behavior, and the Perceived Control of being able to carry out the behavior. In addition …

The History And Status Of Children's Allowances: Policy Background For Children's Savings Accounts, Jami C. Curley, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Children’s allowances, a common feature of twentieth century welfare states, are cash grants to families with children. The concept of a government-provided monthly cash benefit to foster income security for all children has never had widespread political appeal. This report traces the history of children’s allowances in other nations to see what can be learned about child support policies.

Individual, Family And Neighborhood Influences On Teen Childbearing: A Life Options Approach, Leslie Scheuler-Whitaker, Shanta Pandey

Center for Social Development Research

This paper presents results from an examination of the effects of neighborhood and family characteristics—as they are related to an individual’s life options—on the teenage fertility of urban respondents. The study drew upon the life options perspective, a loosely defined theoretical framework which posits that opportunities for social and economic mobility impact an adolescent’s expectations for the future and behavior. The data come from the University of Chicago’s Urban Poverty and Family Life Survey of Chicago. Collected in 1987 under the supervision of William Julius Wilson, the data are derived from 2,490 personal and telephone interviews conducted with a multistage, …

Home Mortgage Lending In St. Louis City: An Analysis Of 1992 And 1994 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act Data, Edward Scanlon, Shirley Emerson

Center for Social Development Research

This report examines home mortgage lending data in St. Louis City in 1992 and 1994. Our primary purpose is to determine how race, income level and neighborhood location relate to home mortgage loan application denial rates. Overall, it is demonstrated that race, income level and negative neighborhood conditions are predictive of loan denial in St. Louis City. The study begins with an overview of related literature. The second section describes our study, and provides information regarding the data set, our variables and research procedures. Part three is a report of our findings. The final section draws conclusions and suggests implications …

Homeownership And Well-Being Among Blue-Collar Workers, Deborah Page-Adams, Nancy Vosler

Center for Social Development Research

The economic, social, and psychological vulnerability of blue-collar workers increases as the U.S. economy continues to shift from manufacturing to service and technology. This paper reports findings from an analysis of economic resources and well-being among automobile manufacturing workers. Following previous theoretical and empirical work suggesting positive homeownership effects for vulnerable populations, this analysis was designed to test relationships between homeownership and four measures of well-being while controlling for household income and education levels. Workers from two adjacent automobile manufacturing plants in a large midwestern metropolitan area were surveyed. Multivariate analysis of data from a subsample of 193 workers indicate …

Human Capital And Social Work, Sondra Beverly, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

This article is an update and continuation of Theodore Schultz’s seminal, but largely unheeded, 1959 article on human capital. Like Schultz, we suggest that building human capital should be a key development strategy for social workers. Empirical research demonstrates that human capital has important positive outcomes. However, opportunities for human capital development are not equally accessible to all. By facilitating human capital development among disadvantaged groups, social workers can help individuals obtain skills that will enable them to compete in post-industrial labor markets. This emphasis on investment and development is particularly relevant today since, in the current political climate, there …

Mortgage Lending: Is Gender A Factor?, Cynthia K. Sanders, Edwaard Scalon, Shirley R. Emerson

Center for Social Development Research

In promoting well-being for women and female-headed households, social policy analysts are increasingly attending to wealth accumulation rather than focusing solely on income. Homeownership equity is a form of wealth that may be especially helpful for low-income women. This paper analyzes 1992 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act data for the city and county of St. Louis. Our primary hypothesis was that women, controlling for marital status, income, and race, would be more likely to be denied home loans. The findings from this data set contradict our hypothesis and suggest that men are slightly more likely than women to be denied mortgage …

What We Know About Effects Of Asset Holding: Implications For Research On Asset-Based Anti-Poverty Initiatives, Deborah Page-Adams, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Asset accumulation programs have emerged at local and state levels to help poor people save for purposes such as education, homeowership, and microenterprise development. These anti-poverty programs are built in part on the suggestion that assets have a wide range of positive effects on well-being, and they frequently use a system of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) to structure asset accumulation. In addition, federal legislation for an IDA demonstration has increasing support. The emergence of asset accumulation programs at local and state levels, along with growing bipartisan support for a national IDA demonstration, makes applied research both possible and necessary. Studies …

Education, Assets, And Intergenerational Well-Being: The Case Of Female Headed Families, Li-Chen Cheng, Deborah Page-Adams

Center for Social Development Research

This paper reports findings from an analysis of economic well-being among female headed households. Previous theoretical and empirical work in this area suggests that poverty among female headed families is to some extent an intergenerational process, a vicious cycle. One common explanation for this pattern is that low socioeconomic status in a woman’s family of origin results in low educational attainment and, ultimately, in low earning capacity. However, an exclusive focus on education may overlook the long term dynamics of the household as an institution that can accumulate assets to enhance economic well-being across generations. Using data from the National …

Who Are The Children?, Russell Grimm

Graduate Research Papers

Youth shelters provide temporary care to children who may have been a runaway, homeless, or had problems at home. They may have been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused. Some children admitted to a youth shelter have committed law violations, and others may be waiting for treatment or discharged from a program and have no immediate place to reside.

The purpose of this study was to profile the demographics of all children admitted to the Black Hawk County Youth Shelter for each of the years 1989 through 1994. Files of the 1187 children admitted to the shelter were exmained. Data were …

Effects Of Assets On Attitudes And Behaviors: Advance Test Of A Social Policy Proposal, Gautam N. Yadama, Michael Sherraden

Center for Social Development Research

Raising asset limits and creating individual development accounts have been proposed in welfare reform. In part the rationale for these proposals is that assets have positive effects on attitudes and behaviors, including long-term planning, greater work effort, and improved social connectedness. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), between 1968 and 1972, included a wide range of attitude and behavioral measures. In this study, data from the PSID are analyzed to test for the following: a) the effect of assets on attitudes and behaviors; b) the effect of attitudes and behaviors on assets; c) the effect of income on attitudes …

Peace, Or The Problem-Free Interval, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper argues for wider recognition of general program indicators as evaluative criteria and sets forth four general dimensions of outcome measures that might serve as comparative evaluative indicators for a wide range of programs and services. Pragmatic problem-solving is outlined as a theoretical basis for an approach to such general indicators. The argument for general program indicators of problem presence, frequency, duration and severity is grounded in general problem-solving theory and is part of an evaluative study of a mental health crisis unit. Peace, defined as a problem-free interval, is offered as an example of a general program outcome …

Public Affairs, Community Service And Personal Care: The Three Faces Of Social Work, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This paper was written for a faculty seminar at the School of Social Work, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, where at the time the author was an Assistant Professor. It makes the case that contemporary social work at the time was an uneasy mix of three very different approaches: A public affairs perspective addressing broad social policy issues; a community services perspective extending to agency management, planning and financing; and a personal care perspective built on psychotherapy, social casework and group work. At the time, many schools of social work were struggling with a legacy of strong support for the personal …

Medicare, Medicaid And The Geriatric Residential Environment, Nancy Lohmann, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

This article reports on a study of interstate differences in the availability of nursing home beds, personal care home slots and public housing, and attempts to assess the impact of the adoption of Medicare and Medicaid six years before on the availability of these components of what was termed the "geriatric residential environments continuum" or GRE. The underlying idea is that components of long-term health care, personal care and housing/shelter are three common elements of a wide variety of public policy for the aged.

Obligations Of Higher Education To The Social Order, Ernest A. Jacobsen

Faculty Honor Lectures

Search for truth is not limited to the discovery of facts. If wisdom is to result from such discovery, there must be parallel study in the realm of values. Lack of balance in these two aspects of research has tended to result in an enormous mass of information and in a marvelous productive power in our society with a lack of worthy ends toward which to direct and apply them. Wisdom is the product of information and values skillfully integrated.

When values are involved the principal data become the ideas and ideals of man. These must be extensively gathered, classified, …