Student Directory
About the Study
The Women's Employment Study, or "WES" combines the insights of poverty researchers, epidemiologists, and social workers by analyzing the ways in which a broad range of labor market, mental health, physical health, and family problems affect a welfare recipient's ability to obtain and retain employment over time.
A key goal of the study is to examine how the presence of any one of these barriers or combination of barriers affects a recipient's response to new welfare program mandates. The study documents how problems at the time of the interview are correlated with labor market success, continued welfare receipt, or the experience of sanctions by the welfare agency at subsequent waves. WES explores if and how work and welfare experiences between waves can, conversely, predict changes in a recipient's overall personal employability during the study period.
WES initially began in the Fall of 1997, and five waves of the survey were completed by early 2004, with a high proportion of the original panel sample retained throughout the study.
The unique aspects of WES rest largely with the broad range of barriers it measures, and the longitudinal nature of the study that allows researchers to look at employment and welfare experiences over time.
