My first study will use multilevel modeling and merge data from the Current Population Survey, the CCDF Policies Database, and CCDF Administrative Data to examine the relationship between the implementation of child care subsidy programs and poverty as well as whether individual-level factors (within states) or CCDF policy factors (between states) account for greater variation in predicted poverty rates among single mothers. After establishing whether state child care policy context is associated with single mother poverty, I then investigate whether CCDF helps protect against poverty for all groups of single mothers equally or whether they have a differential effect by race. 

My second study using qualitative methods will investigate differences across states in the relationship between a state’s child care/early childhood policy context and single mothers’ work trajectories and preferences and ideals about work, care, and social provision. In partnership with CCDF administrators in three different states who will support participant recruitment, I plan to collect and analyze new data using in-depth interviews with single mothers who applied for child care subsidies. I will be guided by the following research questions: (1) How do experiences with the publicly subsidized child care system shape single mothers’ trajectories of work, their care arrangements, and their ideas about employment and social assistance? (2) How do these relationships vary or not by state? (3) How do child care and early childhood policies interact to shape single mothers’ work and care outcomes? (author abstract)