Wellesley Child Care Research Partnership researchers began working together under the Tri-State Child Care Research Partnership funded for three years (1995-1998) by the Child Care Bureau, Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services.  The Tri-State partnership was administered by the Florida Children's Forum.

The Wellesley Child Care Research Partnership, administered by Wellesley College, continued as one of five national Child Care Research Partnerships funded by the Child Care Bureau. Each of these partnerships was funded for four years from October 1997 to September 2001. The partnerships formed a Child Care Policy Research Consortium, which met quarterly in Washington to synthesize research findings and develop policy recommendations.

The Partnership is currently funded under a Field Initiated Grant from the Child Care Bureau.

The Wellesley Partnership is examining economic self-sufficiency and childcare issues affecting welfare recipients and low-income working families.

The Partnership is focusing its research on three primary issues:

1. factors affecting the labor force participation of low-income families;

2. determinants of the earnings of low-income families;

3. availability, costs and quality of the childcare utilized by low-income families while receiving child care subsidies and when subsidies are no longer available to them.

In addressing these three issues, the Wellesley Partnership is employing a dual focus on family self-sufficiency and on the quality of care received by children.

The Wellesley Partnership has assembled a talented and diverse research team. The Principal Investigator for the Partnership is Ann Dryden Witte, Professor of Economics at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.  Dr. Witte has over 20 years of experience managing large and complex applied research projects. A prolific scholar and researcher, Dr. Witte has published extensively in economics, criminal justice, statistical, and other social science journals. Her excellence in statistical analysis has been recognized by her designation as Fellow of the American Statistical Association and Fellow of the Royal Statistical Society. She is an expert in the analysis of longitudinal data.

The Co-Principal Investigator is Magaly Queralt. Dr. Queralt is a highly respected scholar and Social Work faculty member with expertise in human behavior, human development, the social environment, and human diversity issues. She has conducted research on childcare, child and adolescent behavior, culture and issues pertaining to ethnic minorities. Her textbook, entitled The Social Environment and Human Behavior: A Diversity Perspective (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1996), has been widely adopted in the filed of social work.

Other researchers on the project are: Helen Tauchen, Professor of Economics at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Robert Witt, Reader in Economics at the University of Surrey in England; and Harriet Griesinger, a data analyst working in Cambridge, MA.  Robert Lemke, Assistant Professor of Economics at Lake Forest College, has joined the team for the analysis of the Massachusetts' data.

Ann Witte, awitte@wellesley.edu
Economics
Date Created: June 5, 1997
Last Modified: February 19, 2004
Expires: September 30, 2008

© 1997, 1999, 2004 Wellesley Child Care Research Partnership