UC Davis

This thesis investigates how the economic resources available to children are impacted by changes in family structure and the public safety net (Chapters 1 & 2), and how health insurance access impacts the post-secondary school enrollment decisions of young adults (Chapter 3).

Chapter 1 examines the impact of parental union dissolution on the economic resources available to children. Using the 1968-2019 PSID, and multiple measures of economic well-being, I compare the dynamic consequences of parental separation before and after the 1996 welfare reform using an event study model with child fixed effects. My results suggest that welfare reform has contributed to worsening economic outcomes following parental union dissolution.

Using the 1968-2019 PSID, chapter 2 investigates the impact of the 1996 welfare reform and other safety net reforms in the 1990s on components of income and food expenditures available to children whose parents divorce or separate. Using an event study model with child fixed effects, I show changes in earnings, take-up of public assistance benefits, spending on food at home, restaurant meals, and food purchased with SNAP following divorce or separation. Comparing changes in these measures after parental union dissolution before and after the policy changes in the 1990s, for children born to mothers with a high school degree or less, relative to those born to mothers with more than a high school degree, my results indicate that the policy reforms of the 1990’s negatively impacted material well-being among children most impacted these reforms.

Chapter 3 studies the interaction of state and federal dependent health insurance mandates on young adult post-secondary education using data from the 2005-2015 October Supplement of the Current Population Survey, and a Differences-in-Differences-in- Differences (DDD) model. State dependent coverage mandates that pre-dated the 2010 Affordable Care required school enrollment as condition of eligibility, while the ACA did not. I find that the education restrictions of state laws had no effect on post-secondary school enrollment. The 2010 ACA Young Adult Coverage Mandate (YACM) provision ended education-based restrictions, leading to a persistent 4.1-6.3 percentage point reduction in enrollment in post-secondary education which was completely driven by reductions in full-time enrollment and enrollment at four-year colleges among those with state-mandated-access-to-group-insurance.