Self-esteem, self-efficacy, and welfare use

Recent changes in welfare programs, including expanded and strictly enforce d work and community service requirements, have raised interest in the fact ors that lead to welfare receipt and that might affect recipients' success in leaving welfare. Most earlier studies focused on welfare recipients' lab or market experiences and human capital characteristics, hut recent researc h has begun to examine psychosocial characteristics, such as self-esteem an d self-efficacy. The study described in this article investigated whether f amily background characteristics and self-esteem and self-efficacy measured early in life related to welfare use in young adulthood. Female welfare re cipients scored lower on measures of self-esteem and self-efficacy before t hey entered the welfare system compared with at her women. Multivariate ana lyses showed a robust and substantive association between self-esteem and w elfare use but not between self-efficacy and welfare receipt. The finding t hat low self-esteem is associated with welfare receipt suggests that welfar e recipients may find it much harder to comply with the expanded and stride r work or community service mandates than previously thought.