Michael Sherraden
Biographic Data
| ID | 203141 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Michael Sherraden |
| GIVEN NAMES | Michael |
| FAMILY NAME | Sherraden |
| SIGNATURE | SHERRADEN M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0825-7201 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 92 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 566 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 92 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1978 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 12 |
The Social Contract in the Age of Intelligence Reconstructing Inclusive Welfare through Universal Basic Assets
Effects of Child Development Accounts on Parent–Child Educational Engagement and Children’s Hope
Background: Child Development Accounts (CDAs) were introduced in the 1990s as a long-term asset-building policy aimed at supporting families in accumulating assets to achieve life goals for their children, including higher education, homeownership, and long-term economic security. Beyond their financial benefits, CDAs have been theorized to strengthen family relationships and improve children's well-being by fostering a future-oriented mindset an…
Historical Harms and Racial Wealth Inequality
Effects of Child Development Accounts on Adolescent Behavior Problems
Theory and empirical examination have shown ways in which households’ asset building for children may affect child well-being, including behavioral and emotional health. Previous research found that Child Development Accounts (CDAs), a universal and lifelong asset-building policy designed to encourage society and families to accumulate assets for children, have positive effects on social-emotional development at around 4 years of age. Using data …
The Long-Term Impacts of Child Development Accounts on Parental Educational Expectations and College Preparation
Announcing a JSSWR Specialty Series on the Past and Future of the Grand Challenges for Social Work
A Policy Platform to Deliver Black Reparations
Successful Black reparations require a policy for delivering payments, one that provides for effective identification, disbursement, asset protection, and asset growth over time. In this article, we suggest a structural solution (structured wealth accumulation of reparations payments) to a structural challenge (deeply embedded racial wealth inequality). Analyzing evidence from a longitudinal experiment, we find that Child Development Accounts (CD…
Parental views on universal asset‐building policy for all children
Financial incentives and support have positive impacts on child development and health. The brief uses data collected from a randomized experiment to examine parents' views of child development accounts (CDAs), a universal asset‐building policy to deliver financial subsidies for adolescent development, education, health and other developmental outcomes. Parents in the treatment and control groups have similar views on the universal CDA policy mod…
Experimental Effects of Child Development Accounts on Financial Capability of Young Mothers
Addressing the Burden of Education Financing in Low and Lower-Middle-Income Countries
Voting Infrastructure and Process
This study examines whether infrastructure and processes at polling places vary by the race and income of the community where polls are located and whether voting infrastructure and process are associated with actual voting by registered voters (typically termed "voter turnout"). Data come from a systematic sample of 20 polling places in St. Louis and St. Louis County, Missouri, on Election Day in November 2018, and from the US Census Bureau. Fin…
Re-emergence of social work in modern China
In this article, we offer a perspective on the re-emergence of social work in China from the viewpoint of a longstanding and very productive partnership between Chinese and U.S. social work educators and researchers. We begin with a brief historical context, followed by a description of partnership development among Peking University, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Washington University in St. Louis. To illustrate academic collaborations a…
An Evaluation of a School-Based Savings Program and Its Effect on Sexual Risk Behaviors and Victimization Among Young Ghanaians
The objective of this study was to examine the effect of a financial inclusion project on youth's sexual risk behaviors and victimization. The project occurred in Ghana, where 100 schools were assigned to either a school-based savings program (SBSP), a marketing campaign, or a control group. Pretest and posttest data were collected in 2011 and 2014, respectively. Given our study objective, we restricted our sample to sexually experienced youth ( …
Building assets from birth
Singapore has created innovative, inclusive and comprehensive asset-building policies designed to promote social stability and development. Asset building from early childhood is an important part of this overall strategy. In 1993, Singapore’s government initiated a universal child asset-building policy, Edusave, which provides resources for improving educational outcomes. Since then, three additional asset-building policies for children have bee…
Toward universal, progressive, and lifelong asset building
Child Development Accounts (CDAs) are subsidised savings or investment accounts that enable families to accumulate assets to invest in children’s long-term development. Ideally, CDAs are universal (everyone participates), progressive (greater subsidies for the poor) and lifelong (beginning at birth). This introduction provides a theoretical and policy background of CDAs in the global context, summarises seven papers in this volume and creates a v…
Impacts of child development accounts on parenting practices
This study examines the impact of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) on parenting practices of mothers with young children in a statewide randomised experiment conducted in the United States. The experiment included 2704 primary caregivers of children born in Oklahoma during 2007: 1358 were randomly assigned to the treatment group and 1346 to the control group. Structural equation modelling suggests that the punitive-parenting score among treatmen…
Applied Social Research
Social work and the other applied social science professions aim to marshal evidence to inform beneficial social change. Notwithstanding positive intentions, effective application of research to policy and practice is not always robust in achieving impacts. To do better, we should purposefully connect research to action, including engagement with practitioners and the policy process. We extend the definition of “public impact scholarship” to incl…
Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare Vol. 45 No. 4
This article provides an historical background to the special issue by tracing the evolution of social development, asset building and social investment in different parts of the world.These approaches transcend remedial and service-oriented interventions and seek to promote progressive social change.They also stress the importance of investing in people and communities, and focusing on their strengths rather than deficits.The historical evolutio…
Asset Building as Social Investment
Inclusive asset building as a social policy innovation is a relative “newcomer” in policy discussions and research. The context is that since the middle of the 20th century, many countries implemented asset-building policy that is not inclusive, serves mostly the well-off, and is highly regressive. In the United States, for example, the largest policy mechanisms are in tax benefits for home owning and saving for retirement. Altogether in the Unit…
Universal and Progressive Child Development Accounts
Child Development Accounts (CDAs) aim to increase college completion rates among disadvantaged youth by helping youth see themselves as “college bound.” This article summarizes findings about the implementation and impacts of universal, progressive CDAs, with emphasis on outcomes for disadvantaged children. Data come from a large randomized experiment. CDAs positively affect ownership of college savings accounts and assets, educational expectatio…
Child Development Accounts and Saving for College
Objective Child Development Accounts (CDAs) are universal and progressive savings accounts that facilitate saving for long‐term developmental goals, including postsecondary education. We examine whether parents’ educational expectations for their children motivate them to increase saving for children's education and whether parents’ expectations mediate the positive effect of CDAs on parental saving. Methods We use logistic regressions to analyze…
Child Development Accounts, parental savings, and parental educational expectations
Improved Financial Capability Can Reduce Material Hardship among Mothers
This study draws on the theoretical framework of financial capability in investigating whether financial access (that is, availability of financial products and services) and financial knowledge (that is, understanding of basic financial concepts) can influence the risk of material hardship. Authors examine the possibility of direct associations as well as of indirect ones in which financial management (that is, individual financial behaviors) se…
Testing Universal Child Development Accounts
This article examines the financial effects of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) designed to build assets for every newborn. Data come from a randomized experiment with probability sampling from a full state population 7 years after the intervention began. As expected, the CDA has a large effect on asset accumulation for college, primarily because of the automatic initial deposit and subsequent investment earnings. Automatic program deposits are …
Individual Development Accounts and Homeownership among Low-income Adults with Disabilities
We examined the long-term effects of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs), savings accounts that match funds deposited by participants for qualified purposes, on homeownership rates among study participants with disabilities in a randomized experiment. Results from a 10-year follow-up of the IDAs indicate that rates of homeownership were nearly 10 percentage points higher for treatment participants with disabilities than for control-group membe…
Assets, Expectations, and Children’s Educational Achievement in Female‐Headed Households
This study examines the relationships of mother's assets (home ownership and savings) to, respectively, mother's expectations of child's educational achievement and child's actual educational outcomes in female‐headed households. Analysis of data from the National Survey of Families and Households (NSFH) indicates that assets of single mothers are positively associated with child’s educational achievement and that this relationship is partially m…
Building assets from birth
Asset building is a growing theme in public policy, and building assets from birth in the form of Child Development Accounts is now occurring in several countries. This article provides an overview of the Child Development Account policies in Singapore, Canada, the UK and Korea, and the proposed policy in the USA. The key elements of inclusiveness, progressivity, coherence and integration, and development are explicated and discussed
Stakeholding
Most antipoverty public policy assumes that household income is an adequate indicator of household welfare. The thesis of this article is that welfare results, in part, from accumulation of household assets. It is suggested that assets yield a number of welfare effects other than deferred consumption, and these welfare effects may be quite important in reducing poverty
Asset Building as a Community Revitalization Strategy
Asset building is helping impoverished families save for education, home ownership, microenterprise, and other community revitalization purposes. These community development programs are built in part on the idea that assets have multiple positive effects on well-being. A system of individual development accounts is often used to structure and subsidize asset accumulation. Studies that evaluate the implementation, performance, and effects of asse…
Do Child Development Accounts Promote Account Holding, Saving, and Asset Accumulation for Children's Future? Evidence from a Statewide Randomized Experiment
This study examines the impacts of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) on account holding, saving, and asset accumulation for children, using data from the SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment (SEED OK). SEED OK, a policy test of universal and progressive CDAs, provides a 529 college savings plan account to every infant in the treatment group with automatic account opening and an initial deposit. SEED OK also encourages treatment participants to open …
Do parental assets matter for children's educational attainment
Assets and liabilities, educational expectations, and children's college degree attainment
Child Development Accounts and Parental Educational Expectations for Young Children
Parental expectations for their children’s education can have positive effects on child development, and thus they are appealing targets for interventions. We posit that a universal and progressive Child Development Account (CDA) started at the child’s birth may help to develop and maintain parental educational expectations. As a first step in assessing this proposition, we analyze data from SEED for Oklahoma Kids (SEED OK), an experiment designe…
Impacts of Child Development Accounts on maternal depressive symptoms
Parental income, assets, borrowing constraints and children's post-secondary education
Integrating Saving into Microenterprise Programs for the Poor
This study examines factors that affect saving performance among participants in a subsidized saving program who intend to use their savings to help capitalize a microenterprise. Using data from 14 community‐based organizations promoting self‐employment among the poor, and drawing on institutional theory, we find that individual‐level theories do not fully explain the variance in savings and that institutional influences also are predictive. Poli…
Assets beyond Savings in Individual Development Accounts
This study examines whether participation in Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) provides low‐income participants with significant accumulation in assets beyond matched savings. Using a longitudinal experimental research design, the study tests whether the experiment affects accumulation in five types of assets: liquid assets, other financial assets, total financial assets, real assets, and total assets. Results show that the experimental and …
Testing Universal Child Development Accounts
This article examines the financial effects of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) designed to build assets for every newborn. Data come from a randomized experiment with probability sampling from a full state population 7 years after the intervention began. As expected, the CDA has a large effect on asset accumulation for college, primarily because of the automatic initial deposit and subsequent investment earnings. Automatic program deposits are …
Universal Accounts at Birth
Objective: This article summarizes the design, implementation, and early findings of a statewide randomized experiment of Child Development Accounts (CDAs). The SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment (SEED OK) is testing a concept for a universal, progressive asset-building policy with potential for national application. CDAs can start as early as birth, providing structured opportunities (e.g., financial access, information, incentives) to encourage …
Social policy based on assets
1995). Social policy based on assets: The impact of Singapore's central provident fund. Asian Journal of Political Science: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 112-133
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Food Insufficiency
Objective: This study examines racial/ethnic disparities in the experience of food insufficiency among families with infants, focusing on the roles of socioeconomic characteristics. Method: We examine the SEED for Oklahoma Kids experiment data collected from a probability sample of White, African American, American Indian, and Hispanic caregivers of infants randomly selected from Oklahoma’s birth certificates (N = 2,652). Data are analyzed using …
Grand Challenges for Social Work
This invited article introduces the concept of grand challenges—ambitious yet achievable goals for society that mobilize the profession, capture the public’s imagination, and require innovation and breakthroughs in science and practice to achieve (Kalil, 2012). We call for broad and deep participation of social work scientists and practitioners in the Grand Challenges for Social Work initiative, which will be coordinated by the American Academy o…
Asset‐based policy in rural China
In response to growing rural–urban inequality, China is undertaking a series of policy initiatives to promote rural development. In addition to redistributive policy aiming at social protection, asset‐based policy, which integrates social protection and social investment, are a viable option for progressive rural development. In 1998, the Hutubi local government in Xinjiang, China, implemented an innovative retirement programme that allows accoun…
Effects of assets on attitudes and behaviors
Raising asset limits and creating individual development accounts have been proposed in welfare reform. In part, the rationale for these proposals is that assets have positive effects on attitudes and behaviors, including long-term planning, greater work effort, and improved social connectedness. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), conducted between 1968 and 1972, included a wide range of attitude and behavior measures. In this study, data…
Universal and Progressive Child Development Accounts
Child Development Accounts (CDAs) aim to increase college completion rates among disadvantaged youth by helping youth see themselves as “college bound.” This article summarizes findings about the implementation and impacts of universal, progressive CDAs, with emphasis on outcomes for disadvantaged children. Data come from a large randomized experiment. CDAs positively affect ownership of college savings accounts and assets, educational expectatio…
Can Child Development Accounts be inclusive? Early evidence from a statewide experiment
Asset opportunity for the poor
The concept of inclusive growth recently embraced by the Chinese government marks a new way of thinking about social policy and development. The primary goal of inclusive growth is to ensure that all people, especially the poorest, have an equal opportunity to participate in, and benefit from, the country's economic growth. In accordance with the new orientation of development strategies, there has been a paradigm shift in social policy from conv…
Assets and liabilities, race/ethnicity, and children's college education
Saving Performance in Individual Development Accounts
Research indicates that marriage has a large effect on reducing the risk of poverty and is associated with a higher probability of attaining affluence over the life course when compared with nonmarriage. Using data from the American Dream Demonstration (N =2,364), this study compares savings performances of married and unmarried low-income participants in a matched savings program-Individual Development Accounts. The results indicate that both ma…
Impacts of child development accounts on parenting practices
This study examines the impact of Child Development Accounts (CDAs) on parenting practices of mothers with young children in a statewide randomised experiment conducted in the United States. The experiment included 2704 primary caregivers of children born in Oklahoma during 2007: 1358 were randomly assigned to the treatment group and 1346 to the control group. Structural equation modelling suggests that the punitive-parenting score among treatmen…
Organizational Effectiveness
Youth employment and education
Military Participation in a Youth Employment Program
The Local Impact of the Civilian Conservation Corps, 1933-1942
The success of Franklin Roosevelt's Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) has been well documented. The program was productive in conservation work and popular wtih the general public. For the most part, CCC camps were welcomed by nearby communities. Most scholarly work on the CCC has focused on policy developments in Washington and, in many of these accounts, the popularity of the CCC has been described in terms of agrarian values such as tree plant…
The Orphan Asylum in the Nineteenth Century
The nineteenth-century evolution of the Protestant Orphan Asylum in St. Louis, Missouri, is described in this paper. Keeping in mind various theories of the development of institutions for children during the nineteenth century, we examine data on families of children admitted, length of stay of children, and reasons for leaving the institution. The data support a new interpretation that explains the evidence more thoroughly than the previously a…
Institutions and juvenile delinquency in historical perspective
Three Squares a Day
In contrast to previous research on the Civilian Conservation Corps (1933-1942), which has focused on policy developments in Washington, the present study looks at young men in the CCC camps across the country. Incorporating a variety of data sources and applying social science methodology to historical data, the study finds that two camp variables, food and living conditions, were the variables most associated with enrollee satisfaction in the C…
Working Over the ‘Underclass’
Working Over the 'Underclass' Michael W. Sherraden Michael W. Sherraden George Warren Brown, School of Social Work, Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic PubMed Google Scholar Social Work, Volume 29, Issue 4, July-August 1984, Pages 391–392, https://doi.org/10.1093/sw/29.4.391 Published: 01 July 1984
Explosive Imagery and Misguided Policy
Unemployed young people are often characterized in the press, in policy discussions, and even in scholarly work as "social dynamite" or some other explosive material. This explosive imagery has significantly shaped youth employment policy over the past twenty years. The thesis of this paper is that policy that emphasizes riot prevention is misguided. More constructive directions are suggested, such as looking at youth problems more broadly, creat…
Chronic Unemployment
Chronic unemployment is a growing problem in the United States and can be categorized into four types: frictional structural cyclical and chronic. To address the issue more effectively, social workers can (1) describe the problem accurately, (2) collect data by type of unemployment (3) document negative human effects, (4) emphasize economic consequences, (5) document the unequal burden on nonwhites, and (6) lobby for long-term employment policy a…
The Reconstruction of Patriotism
Reflections on Katimavik, an innovative Canadian youth program
Stakeholding
Most antipoverty public policy assumes that household income is an adequate indicator of household welfare. The thesis of this article is that welfare results, in part, from accumulation of household assets. It is suggested that assets yield a number of welfare effects other than deferred consumption, and these welfare effects may be quite important in reducing poverty
Social services and adolescents
Social service by university students in Mexico
The politics of rich and poor
One Type of Youth Employment Service
Non‐military service, sometimes called national service, refers to organised programmes in which young people engage in a period of service to the community or to the nation. Over the past twenty‐five years, there have been a number of major studies in the United States which have recommended large‐scale voluntary non‐military service (Eberly, 1966; Carnegie Council on Policy Studies in Higher Education, 1979; Committee for the Study of National …
Full Employment and Social Welfare Policy
With the ups and downs of the economy, unemployment comes and goes as a public policy issue. As of November 1990, the official US unemployment rate stood at 5.9 percent, above the 16 year low of 5.0 percent that had been reached earlier in the year. Around the 5 percent level of unemployment, a majority of economists say that the labour market is near the “natural rate of unemployment”, the rate at which labour shortages lead to wage increases, p…
Assets and welfare
Asset-Based Social Welfare Policy
Asset-based social welfare policy is an emerging theme in public policy that focuses on accumulation of wealth rather than on levels of household consumption. In this paper, housing policy is used to illustrate asset-based policy for the poor. Rather than increasing income-based rent subsidies, asset-based housing policy would promote homeownership. Homeownership has played a critical role in the upward mobility of immigrant groups (Bauman, 1987)…
Assets and the Poor
Classroom and Advocacy
A social work seminar on employment issues was devoted to a research-based advocacy project on the working poor. All class members participated in data gathering, interviewing, and report writing. The report included national, state, and local data describing the working poor population. Particular attention was given to single mothers, the homeless, and health care issues. The project resulted in a published report by a major social welfare ad
Social policy based on assets
1995). Social policy based on assets: The impact of Singapore's central provident fund. Asian Journal of Political Science: Vol. 3, No. 2, pp. 112-133
Effects of assets on attitudes and behaviors
Raising asset limits and creating individual development accounts have been proposed in welfare reform. In part, the rationale for these proposals is that assets have positive effects on attitudes and behaviors, including long-term planning, greater work effort, and improved social connectedness. The Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), conducted between 1968 and 1972, included a wide range of attitude and behavior measures. In this study, data…
Black Wealth/White Wealth
Economics (62 works) · Political science (50 works) · Psychology (41 works) · Business (37 works) · Economic growth (37 works) · Sociology (33 works) · Financial Literacy, Pension, Retirement Analysis (32 works) · Asset (computer security (27 works) · Gender, Labor, and Family Dynamics (24 works) · Demographic economics (20 works)