A new study explores the phenomenon of inter-generational welfare and finds that children of parents on welfare increase their participation over the next five years by 6% and over the next 2 years by 12%. “We find strong evidence of a welfare culture, where welfare use in one generation causes welfare use in the next generation,” write the authors of “Family Welfare Cultures,” published by the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Exploring the mechanism by which the welfare culture is transmitted, they argue that children raised in welfare households learn from their parents’ experience.
What makes this study especially interesting is that it does not draw from the experience of inner-city blacks or Appalachian whites. It draws from Norwegians on disability insurance. It points to a dynamic that arguably applies across all races, religions and cultures.
If anything, the study understates the extent to which culture affects welfare dependency in the United States. In Norway, if I’m not mistaken, welfare dependence is less concentrated geographically. Norwegians on disability are less likely to be packed into inner cities or mountain hollows. In the United States, welfare dependency is so extensive and so concentrated that many children don’t take their cues just from their parents, but their peers and the culture all around them.
— JAB