What relationships do statistical analyses suggest?
Mediational statistical analyses of selected impacts on young children in the COS sample suggest that welfare-to-work programs can affect children to the extent that they affect mothers’ employment and/or affect children’s home environment (for example, mothers’ psychological well-being and parenting). Five of the 14 impacts on focal children in the COS sample (which reflect the general pattern of favorable cognitive, unfavorable health, and mixed behavioral impacts) were examined in more detail through an analysis that attempts to identify factors that appear to statistically explain the relationships between outcomes. According to this nonexperimental analysis, for example, the Atlanta LFA program’s favorable impact on focal children’s average school readiness score appears to be related to the program’s favorable impacts on mothers’ employment and parenting skills. As another example, the Riverside programs’ unfavorable impacts on focal children’s maternal health rating statisticall
