Welfare Program Implementation and Parents’ Depression

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Abstract
This study examines how the frontline practices in welfare offices explain variation in program impacts on parents’ depression. The study uses data from four large‐scale experimental studies and conducts multilevel statistical modeling on 6,761 families in 22 local welfare offices. Analyses examine the ways that two program implementation practices (emphasis on quick job entry and personal client attention) are associated with program impacts on parents’ depressive symptoms. Effects vary by the age composition of the parents’ children, such that programmatic emphasis on quick job entry is associated with increases in depression among parents with preschool‐age children but not among parents with school‐age children. Findings have implications for research, policy, and practice.