Shirley L. Porterfield

Associate Professor
Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison
523 Lucas Hall
314-516-4617
porterfields@umsl.edu

Shirley L. Porterfield joined the Department of Social Work at the University of Missouri-St. Louis as an assistant professor in the Fall of 2003. She is also a research affiliate in Washington University’s Center for Social Development and a member of the board of directors of the Missouri Budget Project (formerly the Missouri Coalition on Budget and Policy Priorities). Her professional interests lie in the areas of social policy, child disability policy, low-income labor markets, and the economics of social welfare. Dr. Porterfield’s recent papers and presentations address issues of welfare reform and child disability, particularly the characteristics, work choices, and income of families with children with disabilities. She is teaching undergraduate Research Methods (SW 3500) and a graduate-level Gerontology course in Health Care Policy this semester.

Dr. Porterfield is currently extending her disability research to investigations of asset holdings and access to health services among families with children with disabilities. She is also an investigator on “I Can Save,” a project evaluating a child savings program in the University City school district. Dr. Porterfield received her Ph.D. in Agricultural and Applied Economics, with an emphasis in Community Economic Development, from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1988.

Recent Publications
Porterfield, S.L. “Work Choices of Mothers in Families with Children with Disabilities.” Journal of Marriage and the Family 64(4): 972-981, November 2002.

Pandey, S., S. Porterfield, H. Choi-Ko, and H. Yoon. “Welfare Reform in Rural Missouri: The Experience of Families.” In press, Journal of Poverty, (accepted March 2002).

Porterfield, S.L. “Economic Vulnerability among Rural, Single-Mother Families.”
American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83(5): 1300-1309, December 2001.

Porterfield, S., S. Pandey, and B. Gunderson. “Assessing the Barriers: Welfare to Work Among Rural, Female-Headed Households.” Journal of Applied Social Sciences 24 (Spring/Summer 2000): 41-57.