Child Support and Subsequent Nonmarital Fertility With a New Partner

Abstract

When a parent has another child with a new partner, a significant effect on parents and children is likely, making factors associated with multiple-partner fertility of interest to policy makers. For single mothers, one potential policyrelevant factor influencing their subsequent fertility with a new partner is child support income. However, the direction and magnitude of any effect is not well-established. This study documents the simple negative relationship between child support and nonmarital fertility with a new partner in our sample of low-income unmarried mothers. We then take advantage of a policy experiment that resulted in randomly assigned differences in child support income to investigate its effects. We find no support for a negative causal relationship between child support receipt and nonmarital fertility with a new partner, instead finding suggestive evidence that mothers with more child support income are slightly more likely to have a subsequent nonmarital birth with a new partner.

Parental responses to child support obligations: Evidence from administrative data

“…We also analyze parental fertility responses. We find that a 1, 000DKK increase in the father's average annual child support obligation leads to a 3.3 percent increase in the likelihood that the mother has an additional child post-separation, consistent with similar evidence on child support and fertility from the U.S. (Kim et al, 2015), and with a positive income-fertility relationship in other studies analyzing child tax and welfare benefits in Western Europe and Canada (Laroque and Salanié, 2008;Brewer et al, 2012;Milligan, 2005).…”

“…By contrast, relative to the father, a mother may have a larger incentive to have subsequent children out-of-wedlock/cohabitation as receipt of a higher payment for her existing children may increase her expectation of child support payments associated with subsequent offspring from new partners. See Kim et al (2015) for more discussion of the relationship between child support and maternal non-marital fertility.…”

“…Using variation in birthing costs across 23 counties, they show that higher child support debt is associated with lower subsequent earnings among low-income fathers. The other three studies use data from a small randomized experiment conducted on single mothers in Wisconsin's Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program: Relative to the control group, mothers who received higher child support payments in this experiment were less likely to cohabit with new partners (Cancian and Meyer, 2014), more likely to have a subsequent non-marital birth with a new partner (Kim et al, 2015), and no more or less likely to work (Cuesta and Cancian, 2015).…”

“…The magnitude of our estimate-a 3.2 percent increase for every 1, 000DKK increase in obligations-is within the bounds of estimates in the literature. In fact, Kim et al (2015)-in the only existing study on the causal effect of child support receipt on maternal (non-marital) fertility in Wisconsin-find a 4% increase in fertility for every 1, 000DKK in payments (after converting from U.S. dollars to Danish krones). The broader income-fertility literature delivers comparable estimates as well.…”

“…More precisely,Kim et al (2015) find that a $300 (in U.S. dollars) increase in child support payments leads to a (marginally significant) 8% increase in subsequent non-marital fertility among single mothers. $300 is approximately 2, 000DKK Milligan (2005).…”