Brief
In fiscal year 2018, noncustodial parents were obligated to pay nearly $33.6 billion in current child support on behalf of the 15 million children served by the Title IV-D child support program. One-third of that, or $11 billion, was not collected. Unemployment is the leading reason for non-payment of child support by noncustodial parents. This brief will explore the opportunities at the state and federal levels to provide employment services to noncustodial parents and increase child support payments in the process.
Other
The federal government’s support of fatherhood initiatives raises a wide array of issues. This report briefly examines the role of the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) agency in fatherhood programs, discusses initiatives to promote and support father-child interaction outside the parents’ relationship, and talks aboutthe need most see for work-oriented programs that enable noncustodial parents to have the financial ability to meet their child support obligations in a consistent and timely manner. (Author abstract modified)
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Journal Article Despite substantial policy attention to increasing the number of custodial parents with child support orders, the proportion reporting that they are owed child support is falling. Potential explanations for this include increases in shared custody, increases in the number of noncustodial parents who have low incomes (or incomes lower than the custodial parent), and growing discretion to decide whether to participate in the formal child support system. We use data on about 4,000 divorces in Wisconsin that allow us to evaluate these alternative explanations, differentiating between divorces in…
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Journal Article Although remarriage is a relatively common transition, little is known about how nonresident fathers affect divorced mothers' entry into remarriage. Using the 1979-2010 rounds of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth 1979, the authors examined the likelihood of remarriage for divorced mothers (N = 882) by nonresident father contact with children and payment of child support. The findings suggest that maternal remarriage is positively associated with nonresident father contact but not related to receiving child support. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Substantial declines in employment and earnings among disadvantaged men may be exacerbated by child support enforcement policies that are designed to help support families but may have the unintended consequence of discouraging fathers' employment. Disentangling causal effects is challenging because high child support debt may be both a cause and a consequence of unemployment and low child support order compliance. We used childbirth costs charged in unmarried mothers' Medicaid-covered childbirths, from Wisconsin administrative records, as an exogenous source of variation to identify the…
Other
The federal government's support of fatherhood initiatives raises a wide array of issues. This report briefly examines the role of the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) agency in fatherhood programs, discusses initiatives to promote and support father-child interaction outside the framework of the father-mother relationship, and summarizes the debate over whether fatherhood programs should include the promotion of marriage. (Author abstract)
Successful reentry is one of the greatest challenges facing America today and, especially the future of our children. The greatest predictor of whether a child will wind up in prison is whether his parent(s)— namely, the father—was in prison. Despite the many daunting challenges that fathers face upon their release, connecting them with their children and family is perhaps the most strategic one to address because it breaks the generational nature of crime and incarceration.
As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher income and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. These widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This paper reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two strategies to strengthen fathers' involvement and family relationships-- fatherhood programs aimed at disadvantaged noncustodial fathers and relationship…
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Journal Article Policy makers have become increasingly interested in addressing the cultural dimensions of child support, "responsible fatherhood," and marriage in poor communities. However, policy studies have primarily focused on identifying economic determinants of these issues, with a substantial amount of variation in their statistical models left unexplained. This article draws on in-depth interviews the author conducted with disadvantaged mothers and fathers to illustrate how a systematic investigation into the meaning of low-income men's ties to families may fill in or provide alternative…
The nation's Child Support Enforcement (CSE) program is a federal/state/tribal/local partnership to promote family self-sufficiency and child well-being. In most states, approximately half of all child support orders are established and enforced by a federal and state financed child support enforcement entity known as the IV-D program (from Title IV-D of the Social Security Act). About one-third of all children in the United States will receive some assistance from CSE and approximately 58 percent of CSE cases involve never-married parents. Services are available to a parent with custody of a…
