Nicole Lynn Kovski
Published: 2022
Total Pages: 0
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This dissertation focuses on the relationships between income support policy, economic security, and family dynamics that contribute to health and wellbeing. Chapters 1 and 2 examine potential consequences of exposure to tax credits, the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), for child maltreatment reports and intimate partner violence – two outcomes that are strikingly common in the United States and disproportionately experienced by those in low-income households. The third chapter is also related to the economic security of families. Typically, in studies of economic-wellbeing, measurement tends to occur at the household level, thereby obscuring patterns of ownership of economic resources within families. In chapter 3, I examine trends and patterns of liquid asset ownership within couples with children, with particular attention to how these patterns are shaped by gendered power dynamics. Chapter 1 leverages a natural experiment – created by a legislated change in the timing of the annual disbursement of EITC and CTC transfer payments to families – to estimate the association between EITC and CTC payments and child maltreatment reports in the period shortly after families receive payments from these programs. Using weekly tax refund data from the Internal Revenue Service linked to state-specific child maltreatment report data from the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System during the 2015 through 2018 tax seasons, I find evidence that reports of child maltreatment made to child welfare authorities decline in the weeks immediately following issuance of these lump-sum credits. My results imply that child maltreatment risk is responsive to not only chronic economic hardship but also to more immediate income availability among caregivers. Chapter 2 focuses on pregnant women’s exposure to intimate partner violence, which affects maternal health and birth outcomes. Using individual-level data from the 1996-2018 Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and a difference-in-differences methodological approach, I find that expansions to the EITC were associated with lower risk of self-reported physical abuse during pregnancy. These effects are concentrated among mothers who are most likely to receive EITC benefits during pregnancy – those with lower levels of education and previous children. Given a broader literature documenting improvements in maternal-infant health associated with EITC expansions, reductions in violence against pregnant women may be one channel through which the EITC leads to maternal-infant health improvements. Chapter 3 uses data from the 1998-2019 waves of the Survey of Consumer Finances to examine patterns and trends in asset ownership within couples with children. Drawing on theories of bargaining power, I test the premise that differentials between partners – in their education, employment, and health status – are associated with each partner’s liquid asset ownership. I find that the proportion of couples with children who hold liquid assets in separately owned accounts has increased between 1998 and 2019. Both men and women have increasingly used separately owned accounts, but the median account balance was greater for men than women. I also find that proxies for intra-partner bargaining power are associated with the likelihood that women, but not men, separately own liquid assets. This study demonstrates the importance of considering intrahousehold allocations in studies of economic wellbeing. Together, these chapters contribute to our understanding of the downstream effects of income support policies for the health and wellbeing of recipients and their children as well as demonstrate the importance of considering how intrahousehold dynamics might condition the effects of such transfers.