American Journal of Community Psychology, Vol. 29, No. 6, December 2001 ( c  2001) Multidimensional Profiles of Welfare and Work Dynamics: Development, Validation, and Associations With Child Cognitive and Mental Health Outcomes 1 Hirokazu Yoshikawa 2 and Edward Seidman New York University This prospective longitudinal study addresses the research gap in the literature regarding multidimensional variation in welfare use and employ- ment patterns, and relationships of such variation with parent earnings and child development outcomes. This study also aims to address the limitations of welfare dynamics studies that do not examine how multiple dimensions of welfare receipt and employment co-occur. Cluster analysis was utilized, using monthly welfare and employment data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, to examine variation within the welfare population in their welfare and work patterns across the first 5 years of children’s lives. Six cluster profiles of welfare and work dynamics were found: Short-Term, Short-Term Work Exit, Working Cyclers, Nonworking Cyclers, Cycle to Long-Term Exit, and Long-Term. The clusters were validated using mother’s 6th-year earnings as the criterion. The clusters’ associations with child development outcomes in the cognitive and mental health domains ( at ages 6 and 7) were then ex- plored. Work following short-term welfare use was associated with higher 1 This research was supported by a grant from the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services (96ASPE280A) awarded to Hirokazu Yoshikawa and Edward Seidman. We are extremely grateful to Jennifer L. Friedman for her help with the data analyses. We also thank J. Lawrence Aber, Marybeth Shinn, Diane Ruble, Karen Adolph, Patrick Shrout, William Davidson, and two anonymous reviewers for their many insightful suggestions, and Irwin Garfinkel and LaDonna Pavetti for their constructive comments on an early version of the manuscript. 2 To whom correspondence should be addressed at Department of Psychology, New York Uni- versity, 6 Washington Place, Room 279, New York, New York 10003; e-mail: hiro.yoshikawa@ nyu.edu. 907 0091-0562/01/1200-0907/0 C  2001 Plenum Publishing Corporation