Bell Curve

198 Cognitive Classes and Social Behavior Welfare Dependency 199Socioeconomic background and IQ are both importantin determining whether white women becomechronic welfare recipientsProbability of being a chronic welfare recipient30% -As parental SES goesfrom low to highEducational Attainment of WhiteChronic Welfare RecipientsHighest DegreePercentageAdvanced degree 0B.A. or B.S. 1Associate degree 3High school diploma 42GED 16Less than high school 380% , I 1 I IVery lowVery high(-2 SDS) (+? SDs)Note: For computing the plot, age and either SES (for the black curves) or 1Q (for the graycurves) were set at their mean values. Additional independent variables of which the effectshave been extracted for the plot: marital status at the time of first birth, and pjveny starusin the calendar year prlor to the first birth.The Rok of EducationWhite chronic welfare recipients are virtually all women with modesteducation at best, as set out in the next table. More than half of thechronic welfare recipients had not gotten a high school diploma; onlysix-tenths of 1 percent had gotten a college education. As in the caseof IQ and socioeconomic status, this is a radically unrepresentative sampleof white ~ornen.''~' It is obviously impossible (as well as unnecessary)to analyze chronic welfare recipiency among college graduates.The women for whom socioeconomic background was the main riskfactor for being chronically on welfare are those who had not finishedhigh school, For women with a high school diploma or more, IQ wasmore important than socioeconomic status (other things equal) in affectingthe probability of becoming a chronic welfare recipient.'"'Why? Apparently the women who did not finish high school and hadan illegitimate child were selected for low intelligence, especially if theyhad the child while still in high school.'12' The average IQ of thesewomen was about 91, and analysis tells us that further variation in cognitiveability does not have much power to predict which ones becomechronic welfare cases.'"' Instead, for this narrowly screened group ofwomen, family background matters more. Without trying to push theanalysis much further, a plausible explanation is that for most whiteAmerican parents, having a school-aged child go on welfare is highlystigmatizing to them. If the daughter of a working-class or middle-classcouple has an illegitimate baby out of wedlock while still in high school,chances are that her parents will take over support for the new babyrather than let their daughter go on welfare. The parents who do notkeep their school.aged daughter off welfare will tend to be those whoare not deterred by the stigma or who are themselves too poor to supportthe new baby. Both sets of parents earn low scores on the socioeconomicstatus index. Hence what we are observing in the case ofchronic welfare recipiency among young women who do not finish highschool may reflect parental behavior as much as the young mother's behavior.'"'Other hypotheses are possible, however. Generally these results provideevidence for those who argue that a culture of poverty transmitschronic welfare dependency from one generation to the next. Ouranalysis adds that women who are susceptible to this culture are likelyto have low intelligence in the first place.