Child support enforcement policy and unmarried fathers' employment in the underground and regular economies

Rich, Lauren; Garfinkel, Irwin; Gao, Qin

doi:10.1002/pam.20286

Cited by 28 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…For example, Richard B. Freeman and Jane Waldfogel (1998) find little evidence for an association between state-level CSE policies and male formal labor supply. Similarly, Lauren M. Rich, Irwin Garfinkel and Qin Gao (2007) find no relationship between a city-level measure of CSE strictness and fathers’ formal employment. However, Harry Holzer, Paul Offner, and Elaine Sorensen (2005) show that a state-level index of CSE activities is marginally associated ( p <.10) with labor supply among black men between the ages of 25 and 34.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 77%

“…Rich, Garfinkel, and Gao (2007) is the only previous quantitative study to examine how the CSE system affects informal LFP. They find that stricter city-level CSE policies are associated with fewer hours of informal work by fathers.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although previous research (Rich, Garfinkel, and Gao 2007) uses the FFCWS, this is the first study to examine the arrears burdens of individual fathers. This is important for two reasons.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following direction from previous literature, analyses for equation (2) used logistic regression for models that measure LFP dichotomously and ordinary least squares (OLS) regression that measure LFP continuously (Freeman and Waldfogel 1998; Holzer, Offner, and Sorensen 2005; Rich, Garfinkel, and Gao 2007). The authors are, nonetheless, cognizant of the potential pitfalls in using OLS to estimate models examining lower-bound censored limited dependent variables, as in the case of weeks and hours worked in labor markets.…”

Section: Analytic Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Falling Further Behind? Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Labor Force Participation

Miller

Mincy²

2012

Social Service Review

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This study examines how child support arrears affect fathers’ labor force participation. It relies on longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study. Findings from analyses of these data suggest that child support arrears result in declines in average weeks worked in the formal labor market in subsequent time periods. These findings are driven by the behaviors of fathers who had relatively high amounts of arrears and no income in the previous year and are mostly robust to tests for selection into no work or low levels of work by fathers. Findings also suggest that arrears obligations that are low relative to income result in increases in the probability that fathers engage in any formal work. Arrears are not statistically significantly related to informal labor force participation. This study highlights both intended and unintended consequences of the growth in arrears under current child support enforcement policies.

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Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although previous research (Rich, Garfinkel, and Gao 2007) uses the FFCWS, this is the first study to examine the arrears burdens of individual fathers. This is important for two reasons.…”

Section: Theoretical and Empirical Evidencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Analytic Strategymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Falling Further Behind? Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Labor Force Participation

Miller

Mincy²

2012

Social Service Review

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“…Either of these scenarios could lead to less father-child contact if fathers have less time for visits or if they avoid their child because they are ashamed that they are not able to make payments. Rich, Garfinkel, and Gao (2006), using fathers' reports from the 1-year follow-up survey, examined the effects of child support enforcement on fathers' regular and irregular employment. Using the city-level PUMS payment rate ratio as the measure of enforcement, they found that strong enforcement is associated with fewer hours of underground employment and has no association with regular employment.…”

Section: The Effects Of Enforcement On Father Involvementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child Support, Fatherhood, and Marriage: Findings from the First 5 Years of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Nepomnyaschy

Garfinkel

2007

Asian Soc Wrk & Pol Rev

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In this article, we review what has been learned to date from the first 5 years of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study about child support, fatherhood, and marriage. The article first describes the parents' circumstances at the time of the child's birth, then examines the trajectories of parents' relationships (with each other and others), fathers' financial contributions and other indicators of fathers' involvement with their children 5 years later; and finally reviews what has been learned about the effect of child support enforcement on these three aspects of families' lives. We find that most unmarried parents are either cohabiting or romantically involved at the time of the child's birth, but are a distinctly disadvantaged group as compared with married parents. Five years later, most of these parents are no longer romantically involved, however, most of the fathers are still seeing their children on a regular basis, and about half are contributing either formally or informally to their support. Strong child support enforcement appears to increase formal and decrease informal support from fathers, reduce marriage among parents, and have a weak positive effect on father involvement. More research is necessary to understand whether these findings are robust over time and across samples of unmarried parents.

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Unchanging child support orders in the face of unstable earnings

Cancian

Meyer

2010

J. Pol. Anal. Manage.

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The underlying theory behind child support guidelines implies that child support orders should change when the incomes of noncustodial parents change. This paper documents changes in noncustodial fathers' earnings over a five-year period and examines the relationship between the changes in earnings and modifications in child support orders. Using detailed longitudinal administrative data from Wisconsin, the authors examine the history of orders and earnings for fathers in couples who had their first child support ordered in 2000. A substantial proportion of fathers experience large changes in earnings, but relatively few of the associated child support orders are modified. Using discrete-time multinomial event history models that consider time-varying variables and control for censored observations, we find some evidence of changes in earnings being associated with changes in orders, all else equal, but the relationship is relatively weak and order changes are not proportional to earnings changes. The findings highlight the challenges and importance of developing policies that result in child support orders being more responsive to changes in fathers' incomes.

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Child support enforcement policy and unmarried fathers' employment in the underground and regular economies

Cited by 28 publications

References 18 publications

Falling Further Behind? Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Labor Force Participation

Falling Further Behind? Child Support Arrears and Fathers’ Labor Force Participation

Child Support, Fatherhood, and Marriage: Findings from the First 5 Years of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Unchanging child support orders in the face of unstable earnings

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