Good Parents or Good Workers?

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xii

   PDF

2. Introduction New Family Policy: How the State Shapes Parents’ Lives

   1. Introduction

      • Jill Duerr Berrick, Bruce Fuller

      Pages 1-15

3. The Good Worker/The Good Mother

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 17-17

      PDF

   2. Barriers to Self-Sufficiency: Are Wages and Welfare Enough?

      • Laura Lein

      Pages 19-33

   3. “The Long Road to Quality Day Care and Work”:Women Define Pathways

      • Desiree French, Bruce Fuller, James Mensing

      Pages 34-62

   4. Where Poverty and Parenting Intersect: The Impact of Welfare Reform on Caregiving

      • Laura Frame

      Pages 63-84

4. Policy Effects on Poor Children

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 85-85

      PDF

   2. Effects on Children as Parents Transition from Welfare to Employment

      • Pamela A. Morris, Ellen K. Scott, Andrew S. London

      Pages 87-116

   3. Parenting in a Changing Welfare Policy Landscape: What Does It Mean for Young Children?

      • Karie Frasch

      Pages 117-137

5. The Good Father

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 139-139

      PDF

   2. How Mothers See Fathers

      • Allison Zippay, Anu Rangarajan

      Pages 141-158

   3. Deadbeat Dads or Fatherhood in Poverty?

      • David J. Pate Jr.

      Pages 159-174

   4. Implications for Families, Children, and Policy Makers

      • Jill Duerr Berrick, Bruce Fuller

      Pages 175-184

6. Back Matter

   Pages 185-186

   PDF

Good Parents or Good Workers? draws upon new ethnographic studies and longitudinal interviews that are reporting on the daily lives of women and children under new welfare policy pressures. Contributors look at family policy in the context of daily demands and critique new social programs that are designed to strengthen families. The book is divided into three course-friendly sections that deal with the impact of welfare reform on caregiving, the lived experiences of low-income families, and family policy debates. Good Parents or Good Workers? is an important text on the impacts of welfare reform that will be essential reading in a variety of courses in education, sociology, and politics.

• care
• children
• employment
• family
• family policy
• father
• French
• poverty
• quality
• reform
• state
• women
• learning and instruction
• childhood studies

"This is an important text that fills a significant void in the welfare reform literature and could not be coming at a more opportune time...The major strength of the volume is in the rich, qualitative data, that allows readers to 'hear' the voices of impoverished parents; and the collected studies illustrate the complexity of their lives." - Robert Geen, Director, Child Welfare Research Program, The Urban Institute

• Center for Child and Youth Policy, University of California, Berkeley, USA

  Jill Duerr Berrick

• School of Social Welfare, USA

  Jill Duerr Berrick

• Berkeley, USA

  Bruce Fuller

Jill Duerr Berrick is Professor, School of Social Welfare, Faculty Leader, Child Welfare Research Center, and is Co-Director, Center for Child and Youth Policy, University of California at Berkeley. Bruce Fuller is Professor, School of Education, University of California at Berkeley, and is Co-Director, Policy Analysis for California Education (PACE).

Policies and ethics