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.

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.

Little 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.

Artikkelissa tutkimme köyhyys- ja hyvinvointitutkimuksen viitekehyksessä lapsen elatusta, kun lapsen vanhemmat asuvat erillään. Tarkastelemme, muodostuuko lapsen saama elatus toisen vanhemman maksamasta elatusavusta vai yhteiskunnan takaamasta elatustuesta, ja onko eri tuloluokkien välillä eroja elatuksen muodoissa. Tutkimme myös, mikä vaikutus lapsen elatuksella on vanhempien toimeentuloon ja köyhyyteen. Aineistona käytimme Suomen tulonjakotilaston palveluaineistoa vuodelta 2013. Tulosten mukaan suurempituloiset yksinhuoltajaäidit saivat useammin elatusapua lapsen isältä ja pienituloiset yksinhuoltajaäidit elatustukea. Pienituloisilla isillä elatusapu muodosti suuremman osuuden tuloista kuin suurempituloisissa kotitalouksissa. Köyhyystarkastelu osoitti, että elatusapu vähentää köyhyyttä yksinhuoltajaäitien kotitalouksissa elatustukea enemmän. Elatusavun maksaminen taas lisäsi köyhyyttä etenkin yksinasuvien isien kotitalouksissa. Elatusjärjestelmän toimivuuttatulisikin jatkossa arvioida erityisesti pienituloisten vanhempien näkökulmasta.