Challenges for child support schemes: Accounting for shared care and complex families

Abstract

The increasing prevalence of shared care and complex families is challenging traditional approaches to child support determination based on the ‘classic’ two-parent, sole custody, post-divorce family. This article provides a comparative analysis of how these challenges are being addressed in the child support schemes of eight different countries and evaluates these approaches in the light of family policies on gender equality in family care. We find great diversity in the incorporation of shared care and complex families, which is not clearly connected to existing ideal typical policy models on gendered family care. However, child support schemes, at least partially, seem to translate into assumptions concerning gender roles and general policy aims concerning gender equality. In order to better understand how countries accommodate the challenges arising from the modern post-separation family, gender equality seems a vital consideration to take into account.

Separated Families and Child Support Policies in Times of Social Change: A Comparative Analysis

“…Previous comparative research on child support policies endeavored to: map out the different institutional arrangements and ways policy operates (Corden, 1999;Skinner et al, 2007;Skinner, Hakovirta, & Davidson, 2012); how policies have developed historically in legal and moral terms (Wikeley, 2006); and more recently, how they have handled complex families and shared care arrangements (Claessens & Mortelmans, 2018;Hakovirta & Skinner, 2021). We argue in this chapter that it is important to examine social change and explore whether child support systems are adapting to changing family arrangements.…”

The Forms and Functions of Child Support Stigma

“…Simultaneously, these same, re-partnered participants continued to seek child support from their children’s biological father. While child support formulae in many English-speaking countries have evolved to reflect multiple partner fertility (Cancian, Meyer, and Cook 2011; Claessens and Mortelmans 2018; Cuesta and Meyer 2018; Edin 2018; Thomson et al 2014), formulae changes have not kept pace with cultural transformations in family forms and their associated parenting and breadwinning norms (Municio 2013). Further research is required to examine these convergences and divergences.…”

Causes and consequences of family dissolution in Europe and post-divorce families

“…As it was assumed that the welfare of children was best served by living with their mother (except in cases of abuse or neglect), mothers were automatically granted child custody, while fathers were automatically required to pay child maintenance. Although laws regarding financial obligations following divorce differ between countries, the general principle is that financial compensation is given to the financially weakest party, and to the party most involved in raising the children (Claessens and Mortelmans 2018). However, as the cultural understanding of marriage has evolved, views on parenting, and on fathering in particular, have changed.…”