Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study (Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio), Embedded Development Study, Wave 2, 2000-2001
Investigators: P. Lindsay Chase-Lansdale, Ronald Angel, Linda Burton, Andrew Cherlin, Robert Moffitt, & William Julius Wilson

Welfare, Children and Families: A Three-City Study is an ongoing research project in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio to monitor the consequences of welfare reform for the well-being of children and families. The Wave 2 Embedded Developmental Study (EDS), which is a part of the longitudinal follow-up, includes interviews of a subset of children 3-6 years of age and their caregivers. It consists of videotaped assessments of children's behaviors, caregiver-child interactions, and observations of childcare settings. The interviews were conducted between October 2000 and June 2001 in Boston, Chicago, and San Antonio. The purpose of the study is to investigate the consequences of policy changes resulting from the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA). The survey was designed to provide information on the health and cognitive, behavioral, and emotional development of children and on their mothers' labor force behavior, welfare experiences, family lives, use of social service, health, and well-being.

The Embedded Developmental Study (EDS) was developed to gain a more detailed and in-depth picture of the environments and processes that affect children during early childhood than can be obtained through standard survey instruments. Detailed, process-oriented measures that provide information not easily collected in standard surveys were gathered. Wave 1 of the EDS contained three components: (1) an additional home visit with mother and child, which included videotaped tasks for the child and the mother-child together, as well as an additional mother interview; (2) a visit to the child's primary care provider (other than the mother), which included observational ratings of the care and an interview with the childcare provider; and (3) an interview with the child's biological father. In wave 2, however, only the mother and childcare provider interviews and observations were conducted. In addition, the "mother" interviews were conducted with the focal child's primary caregiver; separated caregivers from the main survey were not included in the Wave 2 EDS sample. The Wave 2 EDS data set contains 670 cases and 1676 variables.

Please Note: Before the Three-City Study data set can be shipped, we must have a signed copy of the Use Agreement (fax copy is OK) in our office. The original is to be kept by the ordering institution or individual, and EVERY person who accesses the data set must read and sign the agreement. There is no need to send us additional copies of the agreement as new users add their signatures. However, the Principal Investigator and Johns Hopkins University reserve the right to audit the Use Agreement Form. To expedite your shipment, it is helpful to download the Use Agreement, and fax it back to Sociometrics at (650) 949-3299. Due to the necessity of the Use Agreement, this data set is not available for download.