Research Summary:Marcia K. Meyers joined the University of Washington in 2001 with a joint appointment as associate professor in the School of Social Work and the Evans School of Public Affairs. She serves as Principal Investigator and Director for the West Coast Poverty Center, a collaborative initiative of the U.W. School of Social Work, Daniel J. Evans School of Public Affairs, and College of Arts and Science.
Meyers is currently engaged in several studies of social welfare, child care, and work/family reconcilation policies in the U.S. and western Europe. One line of Meyers' research examines state-level variation in U.S. social welfare policies. Recent papers in Social Science Quarterly, Journal of Marriage and the Family and Publius have used a combination of micro data (e.g. from the CPS and the New York Social Indicators Survey) and administrative data to investigate the structure and consequences of state policies in child care, welfare, health care and other programs affecting low-income households.
A second line of research examines similar issues in a comparative context. Meyers’ recent papers in this area have described variations in child care policy across industrialized democracies and trends in family policy spending in the western industrialized countries. With her colleague Janet Gornick, Meyers published Families That Work: Policies for Reconciling Parenthood and Employment in 2003. This volume provides an overview of child care, parenting leave and working time policies in the U.S. and western Europe and analyzes their potential to resolve apparent tradeoffs between gender equality and child well-being. A revised version of this work will serve as the central essay for a Real Utopias conference and volume in 2006/2007.
Meyers’ third line of research considers the role of local organizational structures in the delivery of social policy. As part of a multi-year project studying welfare reform, she developed innovative sampling and data collection techniques for quantifying the activities of front-line staff in welfare agencies. Initial papers from this project have analyzed organizational factors, such as goal congruence, in local service delivery organizations that have been charged with significant responsibility for policy reforms. She is currently conducting analyses to describe front-line workers’ activities in more than 1,000 transcribed interviews with welfare clients, and to model the impact of organizational factors on these activities.
Recent Publications:- Berger, L. M.; Heintze, T.; Naidich, W. B.; Meyers, M. K., (2008), Subsidized Housing and Household Hardship Among Low-Income Single-Mother Households, Journal of Marriage and Family, 70: 4, 934-950.
- Gornick, J. C.; Meyers, M. K., (2008), Creating gender-egalitarian societies: an agenda for reform, Politics and Society, 36: 3, 313-349.
- Lindhorst, T.; Meyers, M.; Casey, E., (2008), Screening for domestic violence in public welfare offices: An analysis of case manager and client interactions, Violence Against Women, 14: 5, 5-28.
- Riccucci, N. M.; Meyers, M. K., (2008), Comparing welfare service delivery among public, nonprofit and for-profit work agencies , International Journal of Public Administration, 31: 12, 1441-1455.
- Lindhorst, T.; Meyers, M. K.; Casey, E., (2007), Screening for Domestic Violence in Public Welfare Offices: An Analysis of Case Manager and Client Interactions, VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, 14: 1, 5-28.
- Magnuson, K. A.; Meyers, M. K.; Waldfogel, J., (2007), Public Funding and Enrollment in Formal Child Care in the 1990s, Social Service Review, 81: 1, 47.
- Durfee, A.; Meyers, M. K., (2006), Who Gets What from Government? Distributional Consequences of Child-Care Assistance Policies, Journal of Marriage and Family, 68: 3, 733-748.
- Gornick, J. C.; Meyers, M. K., (2006), L'egalite des sexes : un enjeu pour les reformes - Entre travail remunere et responsabilites familiales, le role des Etats providence - Un regard americain sur la prise en compte du care dans les politiques sociales europeennes, Revue franu’caise des affaires sociales. Cahier de jurisprudence. Emploi-travail, 60: 1, 187.
- Heintze, T. C.; Meyers, M. K.; Berger, L. M.; Naidich, W. B., (2006), Housing Assistance and Employment: How Far-Reaching Are the Effects of Rental Subsidies?, Social Service Review, 80: 4, 635.
- Meyers, M. K.; Jordan, L. P., (2006), Choice and Accommodation in Parental Child Care Decisions, Journal of the Community Development Society, 37: 2, 53.
- Bainbridge, J.; Meyers, M. K.; Tanaka, S.; Waldfogel, J., (2005), Who Gets an Early Education? Family Income and the Enrollment of 3- to 5-Year-Olds from 1968 to 2000, Social Science Quarterly, 86: 3, 724-745.
- Meyers, M. K.; Peck, L. R.; Davis, E. E.; Collins, A.; Kreader, J. L.; Georges, A.; Weber, R.; Schexnayder, D.; Schroeder, D.; Olson, J. A., (2005), The Dynamics of Child Care Subsidy Use: A Collaborative Study of Five States, From Welfare to Childcare: What Happens to Young Children When Mothers Exchange Welfare for Work, Cabera, R. H.; Peters, L., Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah.
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Ph. D. 1992, University of California-Berkeley. U.S. and cross-national social welfare and family policy, child care, child disability, poverty.
