Child support receipt: Does context matter? A comparative analysis of Colombia and the United States

Cuesta, Laura; Meyer, Daniel R.

doi:10.1016/j.childyouth.2012.05.023

Cited by 19 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Thus, cultural attitudes and perceptions about the financial responsibility of child rearing may prevent immigrant mothers from pursuing child support regardless of their citizenship status. However, Cuesta and Meyer (2012) found that custodial mothers in Colombia and the United States have similar issues when it comes to receiving financial support from their children’s father, despite the differences in economic development and in attention to child support policy in the two countries. It is therefore an empirical question whether culture and perceptions about the child support system would have an impact on the child support outcomes of mixed-status families in the United States…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

Child support and mixed-status families an analysis using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Pirog

Vargas

2016

Social Science Research

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A large body of literature documents the importance of child support for children’s wellbeing, though little is known about the child support behaviors of mixed-status families, a large and rapidly growing population in the United States. In this paper, we use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the impact of citizenship status on formal and informal child support transfers among a nationally representative sample of parents who have citizen children. Probit regression models and propensity score matching (PSM) estimators show that mixed-status families are significantly less likely to have child support orders and child support receipt compared to their citizen counterparts. We found that mothers’ knowledge of the child support system increases the probability of establishing paternity. However, cultural differences in knowledge of and perception about the U.S. child support system between mixed-status families and citizen families do not have an impact on the probability of getting a child support order, child support receipt, or in-kind child support. Rather, institutional factors such as collaborations between welfare agencies and child support enforcement agencies as well as state child support enforcement efforts have a significant impact on formal child support outcomes. The results are robust against different model specifications, measure constructions, and use of datasets. These findings have important policy implications for policy makers and researchers interested in reducing child poverty in complex family structures and underscore the need to revisit child support policies for mixed-status families.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

Child support and mixed-status families an analysis using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Pirog

Vargas

2016

Social Science Research

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“…Kansainvälisistä tutkimuksista tiedämme, että elatusapua saa todennäköisemmin korkeasti koulutetut ja työssäkäyvät yksinhuoltajaäidit (Cuesta & Meyer 2012). Sen sijaan pienituloiset yksinhuoltajaperheet, jotka eniten olisivat elatusavun tarpeessa, eivät Suomessa aina sitä saa, ja joutuvat turvautumaan elatustukeen (Hakovirta & Jokela 2018).…”

Section: äIdit Ja Lapsen Elatusunclassified

Lapsen elatus, vanhempien toimeentulo ja köyhyys

Haapanen

Hakovirta

2019

Janus

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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.

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“…We addressed this issue with a two-fold approach. First, we relied on existing studies to describe the schemes of Uruguay (Bucheli & Cabella, 2009), Colombia (Cuesta & Meyer, 2012), and Peru (Ríos-Salas & Meyer, 2014). Second, we conducted a systematic review of current child support legislation to describe the schemes of Guatemala, 4 Panama, 5 and Paraguay.…”

Section: Child Support Policy Schemes In Latin Americamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…If so, even when paternity has been established, children of unmarried parents may receive lower child support payments than children of previously married couples. Evidence for Colombia (Cuesta & Meyer, ), Peru (Ríos‐Salas & Meyer, ), and the USA (Ha, Cancian, & Meyer, ; Huang, ) also shows that divorced single‐mothers are more likely to receive child support than those who were never married. These factors, when taken together, suggest that the largest impact of child support on child poverty will be in countries where the majority of child support cases come through divorce proceedings, and the lowest impact will be in countries where nonmarital cases are the main driver of child support caseloads.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Following the approach of Skinner and Davidson (), countries are clustered into typologies according to the role that courts and public agencies play in their operation. Our description of these typologies focuses on four main tasks of the operation of the child support policy schemes, as in Cuesta and Meyer (): request for intervention, child support order establishment and revision, collection and distribution of child support payments, and enforcement of child support arrangements.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The antipoverty effectiveness of child support: Empirical evidence for Latin American countries

2018

Self Cite

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In this article we examine the role of child support in the economic well‐being of children in single‐parent families in Latin America. We use the Luxembourg Income Study wave IX and the 2012 Colombian Quality of Life Survey to answer three questions: (1) Are children in single‐parent families more likely to be poor than children in two‐parent families? (2) What is the relative importance of different income sources in the income packages of these families? and (3) Are child support transfers improving the economic well‐being of children in single‐parent families? Our results show that children in single‐parent families are disproportionally poor relative to two‐parent families in Brazil, Colombia, Panama, Paraguay, and Uruguay. For other countries, poverty rates are similar (Guatemala and Peru), or higher in two‐parent families than single‐parent families (Mexico). Labor income is the most important income source for both types of families in all of these countries. However, child support represents between 20% and 39% of total income among families receiving this transfer. The largest antipoverty effectiveness of child support is also observed among these families. Child support brings between 30% and 55% of children receiving this transfer out of poverty.

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Child support receipt: Does context matter? A comparative analysis of Colombia and the United States

Cited by 19 publications

References 7 publications

Child support and mixed-status families an analysis using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Child support and mixed-status families an analysis using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study

Lapsen elatus, vanhempien toimeentulo ja köyhyys

The antipoverty effectiveness of child support: Empirical evidence for Latin American countries

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