Work, Welfare, and Protection Orders: Modeling Changing Earnings in the Context of Group Differences and...

Researchers who study violence against women often face problems when trying to understand the causes of individual changes in the context of group differences, targeted interventions, and institutional shifts. The authors explore these problems through research on the connections among women's earnings, welfare, and protection orders. The authors use multigroup, piecewise, latent growth curve models to explore differences in the initial earnings and earnings changes for two groups: welfare recipients who have and who have not petitioned for a restraining order. The authors further examine these differences in the context of institutional change, specifically the implementation of the Personal Responsibility Act of 1996.