The economic downturn triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread economic harm to families across the United States. Single-mother families with young children were particularly vulnerable to these negative effects as many were already in precarious economic positions. Given the harmful effects of economic deprivation in early childhood on children’s lifelong health and wellbeing, it is critical to understand whether the unprecedented safety net expansions during the COVID-19 recession era mitigated income losses and prevented economic hardship among these families. We leveraged administrative data from the state of Wisconsin to estimate the short-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on single mothers’ income sources (earnings, child support, and safety net benefits) and economic wellbeing with attention to differences by mothers’ race and ethnicity and labor force attachment. Our analyses compared a cohort of mothers with a nonmarital birth that were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic two years following childbirth to a similar cohort of mothers who gave birth one year prior. We found that the unprecedented expansion of the safety net in 2020 more than compensated for declines in single mothers’ earnings, ultimately leading to a higher level of total personal income and reductions in poverty. Black single mothers and single mothers with strong attachment to the labor force prior to the pandemic experienced the largest increases in income among the subgroups examined. Meanwhile, Hispanic mothers with no labor force participation were the most economically vulnerable.

Children living in custodial-mother families are disproportionately poor as compared to children living with both parents. Child support from the noncustodial father is associated with lower poverty rates among custodial-mother families, suggesting that policies to promote child support payments improve the economic well-being of these families. Yet, we do not know whether child support remains a protective factor against child poverty when other anti-poverty strategies are considered, and whether this association remains significant throughout childhood, especially in middle- and low-income countries. We contribute to addressing these research gaps by investigating the following questions in Chile and Colombia: (1) How do child poverty and child support receipt change over time among children in custodial-mother families? (2) To what extent does child support protect these children against concurrent poverty? And (3) To what extent does child support protect these children against future childhood poverty? We find that chronic poverty is common among children in custodial-mother families in both countries, but a higher proportion of Colombian children remain poor throughout their childhood. In both countries child support is inconsistently received, but a higher proportion of Chilean children receive child support throughout their childhood. Child support is associated with a 6–8 percentage point decline in concurrent poverty in both countries. However, child support is associated with a decline in future childhood poverty only in Chile. Our findings highlight the importance of cross-national research to better understand the strengths and limitations of child support policy as a strategy to address child poverty.

This article provides new exploratory information on child support amounts expected for non-resident fathers of children living with low-income, unemployed mothers in Colombia, Finland, Peru, the United States, and Uruguay. Using vignette data obtained through extensive interviews with judicial and social service personnel and child support experts, we investigated whether child support is expected and its amount when single mothers are unemployed, considering four different levels of earnings for fathers. In all countries but Finland, child support is expected when the father has only temporary employment. For the lowest income fathers, child support expectations in Colombia, Peru, and Uruguay are similar or higher than the United States and higher in Finland. In all countries except Colombia, child support expectations are higher when father’s income is higher. We discuss implications for policy and future research.

Custodial mothers experience high rates of poverty and income volatility in the United States. Emerging evidence suggests that the regularity of child support is positively associated with the regularity of family income and ability to meet basic needs. However, we know little about how child support regularity matters for mothers' employment. In this study, we examine the associations between child support regularity and custodial mothers' employment in a nationally representative US sample covering 1997-2019. We find that regular child support receipt, versus no receipt, is associated with increases in part-time employment and decreases in full-time employment but find no associations with annual weeks worked or earnings. Among employed mothers, we also find increases in job stability within the year. We find some heterogeneity in these associations by maternal education and age of youngest child. Our findings suggest that child support regularity might support mothers' stable part-time employment without compromising earnings.

Colombian custodial parents, largely single mothers, work and care for their children in a challenging context: unpaid care work is disproportionately borne by women and access to childcare, quality jobs, and social welfare programs is limited. Noncustodial parents' monetary contributions to their nonresident children may play a key role in the wellbeing of custodial-parent families. We examine the Colombian child support system using prior research and new empirical evidence from our analysis of the Colombian Quality of Life Survey. Between 1997 and 2016, families eligible for child support increased from 32 per cent to 42 per cent. While parents have several options to make a child support arrangement, only 1 in 4 custodial-mother families receive child support. Individual socioeconomic disadvantage and characteristics of the child support system may be contributing to the low rate of child support receipt. Policymakers and scholars could partner in designing and implementing interventions to better serve this population.

Child support systems vary across countries by way of technical procedures, enforcement, and underlying purposes. The payment of child support can influence the financial wellbeing of separated parents, particularly mothers, and their children. In this chapter, international perspectives are compared through the chronology of access to each child support system, to the calculation of payment amounts, through to the collection of payments, and finally, their enforcement. This chapter does not critique each system but offers a way of understanding its distinctiveness, shared purposes, and technical procedures. It describes how the features of national child support systems differ or are constant across countries, and how they underpin each country's current struggles with how to resource children living apart from one parent.

Objective: This study examined trends in child support receipt and regularity in the U.S. from 1996 to 2018, as well as whether inequality in these child support outcomes has grown by mothers' education, marital status, and race. Background: Child support from noncustodial fathers is an important income source for custodial mothers. Yet, many custodial mothers do not receive any child support or receive irregular payments. Demographic, economic, and policy changes over the past 20 years suggest custodial mothers' child support receipt, and especially regular receipt, may be declining, particularly among socioeconomically-disadvantaged mothers. Method: Using nationally-representative data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study describes trends in child support receipt and regularity among custodial mothers (N = 11,456). Regression models were used to examine maternal and household characteristics associated with child support receipt and regularity and to examine how gaps in child support receipt and regularity by maternal characteristics have changed over time. Results: Child support receipt and regularity declined by nearly 30% between 1996 and 2018. Any receipt, and especially regular receipt, declined by a larger margin for less- educated and never married mothers relative to higher- educated and married mothers, respectively. Conclusion: Growing gaps in child support receipt and regularity by mothers' education and marital status likely contribute to economic inequality, highlighting the need for reforms in child support policy and the social safety net.

Access to justice is limited for many worldwide. Although prior research generally recognizes the legal needs and barriers faced by women, less is known about mothers. This study examined the legal needs of mothers in different family configurations and the actions they took in response to these needs through the lens of help-seeking theories. We used unique data from the 2016 Colombian Quality of Life Survey (QLS) to produce descriptive statistics on the legal needs of mothers in two-parent families and custodial mothers. We then conducted multivariate analyses to examine the factors associated with having a family issue and seeking institutional help. Custodial mothers were more likely than mothers in two-parent families to have reported any legal need, and to report a family legal issue. The most frequent legal issues related to the family were issues with child support, custody, and/or visitation. The most frequent action taken to resolve issues was through an institutional actor. Among custodial mothers, single, younger mothers and mothers with more children were more likely to experience family legal issues, but they were not the ones seeking institutional help-those mothers were often more socioeconomically advantaged. That more socioeconomically disadvantaged mothers are more likely to experience a family legal issue but less likely to seek institutional help, the most frequent route to action, calls for research that examines the barriers faced by these mothers and policies to improve their access to justice.

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.

Objective In this research, we examine the characteristics of custodial-mother families with a child support arrangement in Colombia and how key concepts from social exchange theory are associated with having these arrangements. Background A significant proportion of custodial-mother families do not receive financial support from noncustodial fathers. Prior research has identified processes behind low rates of child support receipt, but little is known about which factors determine whether separated parents make a child support arrangement in the first place, especially in less affluent countries. Methods Using data on custodial mothers interviewed in the Colombian Longitudinal Survey, we used descriptive statistics to examine the characteristics of custodial mothers with a child support arrangement and estimated logistic regression models to examine how economic dependence and commitment before separation are associated with having a child support arrangement. Results Only 35.7% of custodial-mother families had a child support arrangement, typically a private one. Mothers with an arrangement were more socioeconomically advantaged than those who did not have one. Only economic independence factors were significantly associated with having an arrangement, and a custodial mother's economic independence discouraged having any child support arrangement. Conclusion Economic factors may bear more weight than interpersonal ties in decisions to pursue a child support arrangement in Colombia. Implications An assessment of the costs associated with pursuing a child support arrangement in Colombia is an important step to improve the child support system's outreach to custodial mothers, current programming, and type of services provided at different stages of the process.

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.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced human services agencies to adapt quickly to the economic realities faced by their customers. For child support agencies, the pandemic raised difficult questions about how strenuously agencies should enforce child support orders during periods of economic crisis and uncertainty. Drawing on interviews with agency and court staff, this study explores staff's perceptions of pandemic-related effects on parents' abilities to work and pay, how and why enforcement practices changed during the pandemic, and changes staff expect to persist. Agency staff reported a pause on enforcement at the pandemic's outset, followed by leniency, flexibility, caution, and empathy in their practices.

Objective This study assessed the relationship between multiple partner fertility (MPF) and intimate partner violence (IPV) and whether such relationship differed by children's age. Background IPV negatively impacts the well-being of women and children. Some risk factors for IPV, such as financial insecurity and young age, have been identified. Much less is known about the extent to which MPF, an increasingly common experience for women in a wide range of countries, is associated with an increased risk of IPV. Method We used data of mothers with at least two children from the Colombian 2015 Demographic and Health Surveys (N = 16,621). We estimated a series of logistic regression models to examine the association between MPF and IPV; our models controlled for various measures of mothers' and households' characteristics. Results The prevalence of IPV was higher among mothers with MPF than mothers with single partner fertility (SPF). MPF was associated with an increased risk of IPV, but this relationship was only significant for younger mothers (aged 25-29 years). The association between MPF and IPV did not differ by the age of the youngest child. Conclusion Younger mothers with MPF are at a higher risk of experiencing IPV than younger mothers with SPF. Implications IPV programming would benefit from targeted interventions aimed at young mothers with MPF and their children. More research exploring the dynamics of family complexity and IPV is needed.

We examined the role of couples' division of labor in the risk of union dissolution among parents of young children in Chile. We looked at whether specialization in the labor market and domestic work predicts union dissolution, and whether these associations differ by parents' marital status and mother's education. Using panel data from the Chilean Encuesta Longitudinal de Primera Infancia (ELPI) 2010 and 2012 waves, we found that specialization in the division of labor is associated with a lower probability of union dissolution among parents of young children in Chile. Unlike prior evidence for the US and the Netherlands, specialization is stabilizing for both married and cohabiting couples. However, there are differences by mother's education. On the one hand, among mothers with high school education or less, specialization in the division of labor is associated with a lower probability of divorce and separation. On the other hand, among mothers with at least some college education, specialization has no advantage over equality in generating more union stability. Our findings shed light on how the interaction of couple's division of labor and socioeconomic disadvantage may create unequal economic prospects for women and their children following union dissolution.

Despite the increasing proportion of single-mother families, the literature on union formation among unpartnered parents in Latin America is scant. Using a sample from a Chilean longitudinal survey ( N = 3,318), we estimated regression models to test associations between single mothers’ economic resources in 2010 and coresidence with the biological father of their children in 2012. We also examined whether these associations differed in subgroups with higher rates of labor market participation. We found that mothers’ paid work was not associated with union formation. Receiving government benefits and living with a parent were associated with lower probability of coresidence with the biological father, even among the most advantaged subgroups. We conclude that in contexts in which most mothers of young children are not doing paid work, economic resources coming from government and extended family may be more consequential than earnings’ potential in influencing single mothers’ union formation behavior.

Objective:We examined associations between resident and nonresident fathers' nonstandard work schedules, work hours, and their level of involvement with their young children in the United States. Background:Nonstandard work schedules may negatively impact father involvement either directly by reducing fathers' availability or indirectly by taking a toll on their wellbeing. Prior research on nonstandard schedules and father involvement has focused on two-parent households, yet nonstandard schedules may pose similar or greater challenges to nonresident fathers. Method:Using data on 1598 resident and 759 nonresident fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we estimated regression models to test associations between fathers' nonstandard work schedules, work hours, and fathers' involvement-accessibility, engagement, and responsibility-controlling for confounding factors and using residualized change models. For nonresident fathers only, we estimated associations between nonstandard schedules, work hours, and child support. Results:Among nonresident fathers, working evenings was associated with lower engagement relative to working standard hours only and other nonstandard schedules, and in some models, working a variable schedule was associated with greater responsibility relative to other nonstandard schedules. Among resident fathers, working any nonstandard schedule versus standard hours only was associated with greater responsibility, and total work hours were negatively associated with each measure of involvement. Conclusion:Findings suggest that fathers' work schedules may be an important factor in understanding resident and nonresident fathers' involvement with their young children.

This paper presents a case study of the development of a program in a large U.S. School of Social Work to train social work students to work with Latina/o populations entitled 'Latino/a Initiatives for Service, Training, and Assessment' (LISTA). Using a case study methodology, this work fills a current gap in the literature as it examines the programmatic and curricular dynamics associated with such an effort. The methods section details LISTA's planning process and early implementation. This includes the demographic, theoretical, and professional context of the program along with the stages of curricular development. The results section examines LISTA's current curriculum, including three courses, field placements and study abroad program, as well as its assessment processes. It further examines issues and challenges related to developing a new curricular emphasis in a graduate program, including funding, recruitment, and securing field placements. The discussion section provides a set of recommendations, including the institutionalization of mechanisms for community feedback and the recruitment of ethnic minority students and faculty. LISTA serves as a potential model for recruiting and training social workers to serve diverse ethnic minority populations.