State TANF Policies and Postnatal High School Completion Among Women after a Nonmarital Birth: A 15-Year Follow-up Study

Background/Purpose: Mothers who had a nonmarital birth face multiple barriers to educational attainment, adversely affecting their economic self-sufficiency over time. With greater economic and marital instability following childbirth, the pursuit of educational endeavors is often out of their reach. Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) can offer essential support to improve their educational outcomes. However, the state-level policies governing TANF operations regarding eligibility, benefits, and employment/educational opportunities vary widely. To better understand how state TANF policy rules may contribute to or hinder educational pursuit after a nonmarital birth, this study examines the effects of state TANF policy rules on the likelihood of mothers’ completion of high school/equivalent over 15 years following a nonmarital birth.

Methods: We used the baseline and five follow-up waves (Years 1, 3, 5, 9, and 15) of data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study—a cohort study of about 5,000 mothers who gave birth in 20 major cities in 15 U.S. states between 1998-2000. We linked the data with state TANF policy rules from the Urban Institute’s Welfare Rules Database and census-track level characteristics from the U.S. Census. The analytic sample was restricted to 1,154 women who did not have a high school diploma at the time of childbirth. Measures included indicators of whether a mother completed high school/equivalent at each time period, state TANF policy rules (income and asset eligibility, maximum benefit amount, work requirement hours, and permission for education activities as work requirements), and individual and neighborhood-level controls. We conducted multilevel discrete-time event history analysis to examine the effects of each TANF policy rule on the likelihood of high school completion over time. Using the estimates of the statistically significant policy rules, the “hazard” rates of high school completion for each time period were computed.

Results: About 35.1% of women in the analytic sample completed high school/equivalent within 15 years after the nonmarital birth. Those who completed high school were more likely to be aged 25 or under at the time of giving birth and less likely to be Latinx than non-Hispanic White. Our event history analysis models indicate that states’ maximum benefit amount (b=0.007 [se=0.002], Exp(b)=1.007) was the only significant policy rule that increased the likelihood of completing high school/equivalent throughout the time periods. Postestimation indicates that having the maximum benefit amount of $800 per month shows four times higher hazard rates of completing high school/equivalent than having the maximum benefit amount of $200 per month throughout the time periods.

Conclusions and Implications: Only a small fraction of women completed high school or equivalent within 15 years after a nonmarital birth. Considering that over 60% of nonmarital unions dissolve within five years of the child’s birth, the low high school completion rates raise concerns for their and their children’s economic well-being. As of 2019, 12 states set only $300 per month as their maximum benefit amount. A higher maximum benefit amount may increase the likelihood that vulnerable mothers complete high school, a common first step to further workforce development/work opportunities.