Researchers tracked more than 2,400 low-income families in Boston, San Antonio and Chicago after passage of the welfare reform legislation in the mid-1990s to see how children fared when mom went to work. Researchers evaluated kids at preschool and adolescence, two times of important emotional and social transition. Preschoolers experienced no negative effects, while adolescents seemed to make gains. They reported less anxiety and psychological stress when their mother began working. Mother’s exit from welfare also decreased adolescent use of drugs and alcohol and increased reading skills.

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P. Lindsay Chase-Landsdale et al. Mothers' Transitions from Welfare to Work and the Well-Being of Preschoolers and Adolescents http://www.sciencemag.org/content/299/5612/1548.short