ObjectiveThis study investigates the role of child support in family economic well-being and how it has shifted over recent decades, considering differences by family characteristics.BackgroundThe formal child support program has wide reach and has historically been an important source of income for some. Recent critiques indicate the potential for negative impacts on families and decreasing efficacy.MethodsUsing data from the 1998, 2008, and 2018 Current Population Survey and the linked Child Support Supplement, this study compares proportions of total family income drawn from child support and other sources. Nonpoor and poor custodial families are considered as well as other relevant subgroups.ResultsFor poor families, child support increased from 11% to 15% of family income in 1997-2007 then declined to 12% in 2017. For nonpoor families, it declined over the period, from 3.9% to 3.4% to 2.6%. For poor families with orders, almost 23% of income comes from child support; for those receiving payments, the proportion is 33%.ConclusionAcross most subgroups, child support is no longer increasing in importance and, for some groups, is a declining share of income. Nonetheless, it remains an important source of income for many low-income families.Implications for Emerging IdeasThis study provides updated evidence about the changing importance of formal child support for families. Understanding the importance of formal support is important in weighing the benefits of income received relative to potential costs of enforcing payments on low-income parents and any disruptions to their relationships with their children it may cause.

This study analyzes the associations between post-separation child living arrangements and child support outcomes and expense sharing in two contrasting welfare states: Finland and the United States (Wisconsin). The extent to which parents share the economic responsibility of the child after separation varies across countries. As shared care arrangements become more prevalent, traditional child support arrangements may become less common. Survey data collected in Finland (2019) and Wisconsin (2020) from separated or divorced parents are utilized in this study, and standard logistic and ols regression models are used to investigate the relationship between sole and shared care arrangements and child support outcomes and expense sharing. The findings demonstrate that shared care arrangements are associated with a reduced likelihood of having a formal child support order and an increased likelihood of sharing child-related expenses in Finland and Wisconsin. Thus, shared care arrangements are linked to a decrease in formal child support orders and an increase in expense sharing. The results indicate a reduced reliance on formal child support orders and an increased willingness to privately share child-related expenses; findings reflect changing societal practices regarding the economic aspects of child rearing in separated or divorced families.

Increasingly, children live in both parents' homes equally after parental separation, but little is known about whether social security policy supports these shared-residence families. We propose that a determination of support for shared residence in various policies can be based on two criteria: whether both parents can receive benefits and whether the total amount received is greater than what would have been received if children lived with only one parent. We categorise support for shared residence in child benefits, housing assistance, social assistance, and guaranteed child support in 13 countries (Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States), using a 2017 questionnaire, policy documents, and previous research. Norway is the only country supporting shared residence in all four policy domains; three countries do not support shared residence in any. Policies on shared residence across domains are inconsistent. This research highlights the need to clarify policy for these families and to consider whether parents who manage shared parental responsibilities post-separation should be assisted in new ways.

Objective and BackgroundPrevious research shows the benefits of formal child support to children during their childhood; however, the long-term effect of child support receipt on outcomes as adults has not been studied. This inquiry examines whether adults who received formal child support as children have different labor market outcomes than those who did not.MethodWe conducted two sets of analyses with complementary strengths to examine young adults' earnings and employment status. Our primary method exploited experimental variation in child support receipt among welfare participants, as part of the Wisconsin Child Support Demonstration Evaluation; the secondary analyses used propensity score matching to construct statistically equivalent comparison groups drawn from a broader population included in Wisconsin Court Record Data.ResultsAcross both studies, we found the receipt of child support was associated with a substantive and statistically significant increase in adult earnings; results for employment status were mixed.ConclusionFindings suggest that formal child support may disrupt patterns of intergenerational disadvantage, reducing the economic vulnerability of children living with resident mothers, and then improving those children's earnings as adults. In addition to contributing to our understanding of the relationship between childhood economic status and adult outcomes, the findings provide critical new information to policymakers assessing family policy.

Objective: We examine the relationship between shared placement and parenting stress for low-income fathers. Background: Shared placement (joint physical custody), a living arrangement in which children whose parents live apart spend a significant amount of time living with each, has increased among families in the United States. Little is known about how this placement affects fathers' well-being, especially fathers with lower incomes and who have had a nonmarital birth. Method: Our sample included 5,755 noncustodial fathers who enrolled in the National Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration. Using regression approaches, we estimate associations between measures of self-reported placement and parenting stress. Results: We found that shared placement was statistically significantly associated with lower parenting stress levels (estimated magnitude of 5%-10%) compared with fathers without shared placement. This held for fathers with equal placement and those with substantial, but not equal, time. These results were consistent when accounting for confounding characteristics, suggesting the association may not be fully explained by selection into shared placement. Conclusion: Shared placement is associated with lower levels of parenting stress for low-income noncustodial fathers compared with those fathers without it. We find that this holds true for any shared placement, equal placement, mother primary shared placement, and father primary shared placement.

Determining whether a household is ‘in poverty,’ requires identifying a resource unit, typically consisting of individuals who both co-reside and pool resources. High levels of family complexity and fluidity in living arrangements among contemporary American families, particularly those that include children, have complicated this task. We leverage novel survey data from Wisconsin to examine the implications of a range of alternative criteria for identifying the resource unit used to measure poverty. We further consider the extent to which unit members, under alternative criteria, exchange food-related resources both within and outside of the unit. Our results reveal inconsistencies between alternative measures of the resource unit and those used to define the resource unit for the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) in the United States, and we find that the SPM unit is generally more consistent than the OPM unit with alternative measures of the resource unit. In addition, we find substantial levels of food resource exchanges among adults who are both inside and outside the resource unit. Together, these findings demonstrate the challenge of appropriately defining the resource unit for measuring poverty and suggest that both the OPM and SPM may not fully account for the availability, amount, or composition of resources for many households.

Understanding patterns of children’s living arrangements (physical custody) in separated families and the factors related to joint physical custody are crucial as custody patterns have significant implications for the well-being of children and parents. In this study we use the 2021 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Survey (EU-SILC) to provide new evidence of children’s post-separation living arrangements in Europe. Our sample (n = 7,461) is restricted to children of separated or divorced parents residing in their mother’s household and having another parent residing outside of the household. We analyze both the individual-level socioeconomic, family-and child-related characteristics, and country-level variables to explain variation in children’s joint physical custody arrangements. We find that joint physical custody is higher among boys and children in the age groups 6–10 and 11–15. We also find that children with more socioeconomically advantaged mothers (higher education, employed, higher income, homeowners) are more likely to have joint physical custody. Importantly, controlling for individual-level characteristics, both the legal and the gender equality context shape the prevalence of joint physical custody, suggesting that country-level policies and norms may be important.

Little is known from large-scale studies about whether noncustodial fathers (NCFs) believe the process of setting their financial obligations to their children is fair. We explore NCFs’ perceptions of fair treatment in setting their child support orders, both overall and contingent on the outcomes of the process, and possible factors related to their perceptions of procedural fairness. Using descriptive and multivariate methods on data from over 3,000 NCFs, we found that a multi-faceted intervention increased NCFs perceptions of fair treatment; that NCFs can report the process was fair even if the outcome seems negative; and that some principles of procedural justice (helpfulness, knowledge, and voice) may be associated with perceptions of fair treatment. Implications for agencies serving children and their families, including child support, child welfare, and justice agencies, are discussed.

AbstractLittle is known about government policies that regulate economic transfers between separated parents (child support) outside of high-income countries. This paper provides the first broad overview of child support policy and its outcomes in 37 middle- and low-income countries. Using a systematic literature review, we provide information on child support policies in these countries, considering institutional arrangements, procedures for determining how much child support is due and how obligations are enforced. Using descriptive statistics on individual-level data from the Luxembourg Income Study Database, we show that poverty rates are high among lone-mother families and that fewer than one-third of lone mothers receive child support. Among those who receive, however, amounts average over $3,600 US$/year, making child support an important income source for some. We discuss how current policies and their estimated outcomes are similar to (or differ from) the previous work that focused on high-income countries.

BACKGROUND Large-scale cross-country comparisons of children's physical custody (which parent the child lives with after separation) are dated and limited in the age range of children considered. OBJECTIVE We document the level of sole and joint physical custody (JPC, both equal and unequal) for children in European countries using data from 2021.METHODS This article uses a new module on the living arrangements of children from the European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions survey. Our final sample comprises 9,102 children from 17 European countries. Analysis is descriptive. RESULTS One in eight children in separated families has equal JPC arrangements; another 8.2% spend at least one-third of their time with each parent (but not exactly half-time), so 20.7% have some type of JPC. Direct comparisons with previous estimates show a doubling of the prevalence of JPC in less than 20 years. Substantial cross-national variation exists: In the Northern European countries, Belgium, France, Slovenia, and Spain, children are most likely zo have JPC. Children in the age groups 6-10 and 11-15 are more likely to have JPC than younger or older children.CONCLUSIONS Compared to previous studies with data from 2002-2010, there has been an increase in JPC for children from separated families in Europe. Cross-country differences are large, but growth is not limited to a few countries. This paper improves on previous cross -national analyses by using more recent data, incorporating all ages of children, and considering unequal and well as equal time.

In this research note, we demonstrate that trends in the likelihood of child support agreements differ by marital history (i.e., never-married vs. ever-married) and by whether measures rely on the stock of families (i.e., all those in which children live apart from a parent) or the flow (i.e., those that include children who newly live apart from a parent) in a given year. While previous research has highlighted difference by marital history, the contrast between stock and flow is a new contribution. Trends are typically measured with reference to the stock of cases, even while the flow of cases, which more immediately reflects concurrent policy changes, is more relevant in many contexts. Interpretations of recent declines in child support agreements in the stock of cases-referenced as evidence for both mandating participation and the impracticality of requiring child support-may be better informed by considering the flow of cases. We find the flow of previously married mothers increasingly likely to have child support agreements while the likelihood is relatively consistent over time for never-married mothers. For both groups, using the flow measure, we find notable increases in agreements without payments due in the most recent period. These findings underscore the importance of differentiating stock and flow, and by marital history, in considering the proportion with agreements as an indicator of the effectiveness of current policy.

Research on child support compliance has focused on the characteristics of noncustodial parents (NCPs) that are associated with compliance, finding that compliance with child support orders is primarily related to the ability to pay support as demonstrated by earnings. Yet, there is evidence linking social support networks to both earnings and noncustodial parents' relationships with children. Using a social poverty framework, we show that relatively few NCPs are completely isolated: most have at least some people in their network who can loan money, provide a place to stay, or provide a ride. We explore whether the size of these instrumental support networks is positively linked to child support compliance both directly and indirectly through earnings. We find evidence of a direct association between instrumental support network size and child support compliance, but no evidence of an indirect association via increased earnings. These findings suggest the importance for researchers and child support practitioners to consider the contextual and relational factors of the social networks in which parents are embedded, and to more thoroughly examine the process by which support from one's network can lead to child support compliance.

Families (and sometimes courts) make important decisions regarding child physical custody arrangements post-separation, and shared parenting arrangements are increasingly common in most developed countries. Shared arrangements may be differentially associated with parental satisfaction, and these associations may vary across countries. Using data from surveys of separated mothers in Wisconsin and Finland, the present study explores this possibility and is guided by three aims: (a) to identify child and family characteristics associated with sole and shared child placements 6 or more years after separation; (b) to estimate associations of children's post-separation placements with maternal satisfaction with placements and expense sharing; (c) to examine whether the relationship between post-separation placement and maternal satisfaction varies by mothers' earnings and the quality of parents' relationships. We find that Finnish mothers with shared placement are more satisfied with their placement than are their counterparts with sole placement, while we find the inverse is true for Wisconsin mothers. Moreover, parental satisfaction with shared placement, overall and relative to sole placement, varies greatly depending on the quality of a mother's relationship with the other parent; and differences in relationship quality in Wisconsin and Finland may help explain the difference in satisfaction with shared placement in the two locations. In both Finland and Wisconsin, we find mothers with shared placement are more satisfied with the way expenses are shared between parents than are mothers with sole placement. Associations between placement and satisfaction are robust to extensive controls for child and maternal characteristics.

The amount of accumulated unpaid child support (arrears) owed throughout the United States is over $100 billion. High arrears balances mean that those who owe support may face punitive enforcement actions, those due child support did not receive the money they were owed, and the child support program must devote more attention to enforcing payment of past-due amounts at the expense of enforcing current amounts due, diverting the program's efforts and raising the cost of enforcement. To address the problems associated with high arrears, Wisconsin reduced the amount of interest due on child support arrears from 1% per month to 0.5% per month. We leverage Wisconsin child support administrative records to conduct both descriptive and multiple regression analyses to explore arrears and payment patterns before and after the change. Findings suggest the policy not only slowed the rate of arrears growth but also increased payment amounts. Those who did not owe arrears at the beginning of the period made higher payments when they did get behind than those who owed higher arrears. Our analyses cannot prove causality, but they do provide some of the first evidence of what happens after the interest rate changes.

We provide an overview of child support policy in high-income countries, highlighting differences in institutional arrangements, the amount of child support due, and the amount of child support received. We show that the United States expects high levels of child support from nonresident parents when compared to other countries, that noncompliance is a problem across countries, and that most European countries deal with nonpayment of child support by providing guarantees of public support for children and resident parents. The guarantee schemes vary in terms of eligibility and generosity. Throughout, we find that child support policy approaches differ across countries. A key policy implication from this review is that the United States may be expecting too much child support from nonresident parents and that it could consider guaranteeing a modest amount of public support to single-parent households.

BACKGROUND While a striking rise in shared physical custody after divorce has been observed in Wisconsin and some European countries, the same trend in shared custody has not been documented in US national data. OBJECTIVE We provide new evidence on the time trend in shared physical custody after divorce in the United States. METHODS We use eight waves of data from the Current Population Survey - Child Support Supplement to estimate logit models and conduct a formal decomposition. RESULTS The likelihood of shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled in the United States from before 1985 until 2010-2014, from 13% to 34%. Non-linear probability (logit) models show that non-Hispanic Whites and more advantaged individuals are more likely to report shared physical custody. Both sequential multivariate models and a more formal decomposition show that the increase cannot be explained by changes in the characteristics of those divorcing; rather we find that several characteristics become more strongly associated with shared physical custody over time. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that shared physical custody is increasing in the United States as a whole, and this increase appears to reflect changing norms and policies that favor shared custody. These changing patterns have important implications for children's living arrangements and for the parental investments that children receive after their parents' divorce - and more broadly for the rise in inequality across families over recent decades. CONTRIBUTION This paper complements previous analyses using court record data from a single US state (Wisconsin) and shows that a large increase in shared physical custody after divorce has occurred in the United States as a whole over the past three decades.

Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA instituted child support agencies in the late 1900s and had some policies that resulted in having lowered governmental expenditures when child support was paid. Building on previous research comparing these four countries, this article examines the extent to which these countries currently use explicit cost recovery policies, implicit policies revealed in programme interactions, and fees. Using data from country informants on hypothetical families, we show the percentage of child support payments that are retained through these different tools. In addition to characterizing country approaches, we discuss advantages and disadvantages of different cost-recovery strategies.

Most children in the United States will spend at least part of their childhood living apart from one of their parents; the child support system is designed to ensure that they nonetheless receive financial support. While the system is largely effective when noncustodial parents have substantial regular earnings, many noncustodial parents, including a disproportionate share of those whose children live in poverty, have limited earnings and ability to pay child support. The system's response to nonpayment is primarily "sticks," that is, threats and punishments. Nonexperimental evaluations of alternative approaches have shown promise. The National Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED), a large-scale random-assignment evaluation enrolling more than 10,000 noncustodial parents across 18 locations in eight states, was designed to test the effectiveness of an alternative approach-adjusting child support orders, reducing punitive enforcement, and offering employment and parenting services. We find that CSPED, using carrots in place of sticks, substantially increased the satisfaction of noncustodial parents with child support services, lowered the amount of support owed, and increased noncustodial parents' sense of responsibility for their children. However, CSPED had limited to no effects on child support compliance, child support payments, or employment outcomes. (c) 2022 The Authors. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Association for Public Policy and Management.

Child support income has the potential to substantially reduce economic hardship for children living apart from their fathers, but many fathers have limited earnings and are unable to pay the support they owe. Understanding their employment barriers has implications for their child support payments and for child support agency services. Using data from a survey of nearly 3,800 noncustodial fathers in seven states, we find that more than half of the fathers reported barriers related to transportation, limited job skills, and criminal records. Although results vary somewhat across models, fathers who reported that transportation difficulties or a criminal record were barriers to employment had substantially lower earnings and poorer child support outcomes. Moreover, Black fathers with a criminal record had particularly poor outcomes. The results highlight the need for a more comprehensive approach to helping noncustodial fathers.