آیا محل مسکونی برای استخدام دریافت کنندگان TANF ، موضوع مهمی است ؟ مدارک و شواهد از یک مدل انتخاب گسسته پویا با اثرات مشاهده نشده

We study the factors affecting the employment probability of temporary assistance for needy families (TANF) recipients using recent quarterly panel data from Atlanta, Georgia. A central focus of our study is to determine whether the TANF recipient's proximity to job opportunity and the availability of childcare affect her probability of full-time employment. Both static and dynamic models of employment choice are estimated that control for unobserved individual effects. We estimate models separately for a sub-sample of TANF recipients living in public housing, whose residential locations can be considered exogenously determined. We find substantial evidence that individual and family characteristics (such as, the education of the recipient and the number of children and adults in her family) are important determinants of the employment probability of welfare recipients. On the other hand, location-related variables are found to be relatively unimportant.

The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) of 1996 imposes stringent work requirements and time limits on welfare recipients—recipients must find work within two years of receiving benefits and lifetime benefits are limited to a total of five years.1 This legislation has heightened interest in the factors that affect the employment probability of welfare recipients. These factors can be divided into two categories—family/individualbased and place-based. The former category includes the standard set of human capital variables (education, training, and experience) as well as the recipient’s attitudes, reliability, and motivation. The recipient’s residential location may affect employment probability in a variety of ways, but the two that have been given the most attention are job accessibility and neighborhood effects. Job access refers to whether there are job openings which the recipient is qualified to hold close to where she resides. Neighborhood effects encompass a variety of mechanisms whereby a recipient’s neighbors may alter her/his willingness or ability to work. Extant evidence on the effects of individual and place variables on the employment of welfare recipients, and low-skill workers generally, can be questioned because few studies have adequately dealt with the fact that residential location is self-selected. Biased estimates will result if unobservable characteristics of the individual affect both the choice of residential location (and thereby job access and neighborhood effects) as well as the probability of employment. In the case of welfare recipients it has been argued that self-selection of residential location is not a major source of bias because recipients’ residential choices are highly restricted by their low incomes [1]. However, there is also evidence that suggests that two of the key individual attributes that result in a recipient having a job are reliability and motivation [17], which are generally unobservable variables. Even if low income limits residential choice, there may be enough choice that these variables are correlated with observable characteristics of the recipient’s residential location that affect employment probability. For example, recipients more motivated to work may perform better in job interviews and may be more likely to seek a place to live that offers nearby job opportunities. It is not clear therefore whether self-selection of residential location is more or less of an econometric issue for welfare recipients in comparison to lowskilled workers generally

In recent years, the role that intra-metropolitan residential location plays in explaining the relatively low earnings and employment of minorities has been hotly debated. The two main hypotheses that relate location to economic opportunity are the spatial mismatch hypothesis and the neighborhood effects hypothesis. Based on the evidence that had accumulated over the years supporting these hypotheses, it was generally felt location would have a strong effect on welfare recipients’ labor market outcomes. However, recent studies that have focused specifically on TANF recipients have produced results that fail to provide much support for either the SMH or the NEH. Two of these studies by Allard and Danziger [1] and Bania et al. [2] rely upon nonexperimental methods, while the MTO demonstration is based on a random assignment experiment. A limitation of the nonexperimental studies is that they ignore the self-selection of residential location. While the MTO is specifically designed to handle this issue, the treatment is the neighborhood poverty rate and not job accessibility. In this paper we have exploited a unique panel of the quarterly employment experiences of TANF recipients living within the Atlanta MSA. Our data allowed us to estimate dynamic discrete choice specifications of the full-time employment decisions of the recipients. The estimated models provide strong control for unobserved individual effects. Moreover, even stronger control for these effects is provided by the models we estimate for TANF recipients residing in public housing.We find strong evidence of positive state dependence and unobserved individual heterogeneity.For both white and nonwhite recipients we find little support for either the SMH or the NEH. While locationmay matter to other disadvantaged workers, it does not seem to be important to the employment probability of welfare recipients. What does seem to matter, according to our results, are the individual and family characteristics of the recipient, both observed and unobserved. The observed variables that matter are the age and education of the recipient and the number of children and adults in her family. The strength of the effects estimated for unobserved individual heterogeneity, initial employment status, and long-term usage of public assistance underscore the importance of unobserved individual characteristics on employment probability. While we find no evidence in support of location as an important determinant of recipient employment, our results should not be construed to imply that location is inconsequential to the overall well-being of the recipient. In addition to possibly beneficial nonemployment effects, neighborhoods with less poverty and nearby job opportunities may provide long-run improvements in employment probability not captured by our results.