Determinants of Child Support: A Pilot Survey of Absent Parents

Abstract

The proportion of children living in single-parent households has risen dramatically during the past two decades. Approximately half of these children live in poverty. A major factor in this impoverishment is non-custodial parents'failure to provide child support. Much is known about child support behavior from the custodial parent's perspective, but little research has focused on the noncustodial parent's perspective. The Survey of Absent Parents (SOAP) was initiated to remedy this gap. This paper describes the results of the SOAP pilot survey of linked custodial and non-custodial parents in three counties in Florida and three counties in Ohio. It reports the results of multivariate analyses of the predictors of (i) child support award levels, (ii) child support payments as reported by custodial and non-custodial parents, and (Hi) compliance with child support awards as reported by custodial and non-custodial parents. The results indicate that custodial and non-custodial parents have very different perspectives on how much child support is paid. The main factors predicting payments across these two populations are (i) the non-custodial parent's situation measured by his current income and marital status, (ii) the custodial parent's situation measured by her current income-excluding child support payments-and marital status, (Hi) program interventions such as formulas used to set award levels, payment through the court, and wage withholding, and (iv) the warmth of the relationships between the former partners and between the father and the child. Copyright 1990 Western Economic Association International.

The Impact of Percentage-Expressed Child Support Orders on Payments

“…Note that the income change coefficient captures a direct effect of income change on payment change, regardless of order type. This is consistent with existing research showing that higher incomes are associated with higher rates of compliance with support orders (Bartfeld and Meyer, 1994;Sonenstein and Calhoun, 1990). …”

“Swapping” Families: Serial Parenting and Economic Support for Children

“…Distance between the child's and father's residences is coded as a continuous variable in miles. Previous research indicates that the greater the physical distance, the lower the likelihood of financial payments (Seltzer, 1991; Sonenstein & Calhoun, 1990). We include the squared value of distance to test whether distance has a nonlinear effect.…”

New evidence on the determinants of the gap between child support awards and child support receipts

“…Federal and state governments acted to improve the situation of these families and children that have a larger probability of becoming poor (Garfinkel, McLanahan and Robins, 1994). The implications of these legislative changes and the effects that custodial and non-custodial parents main characteristics had over the child support orders and their collection were separately studied by different authors (Beller and Graham, 1993;Sonestein and Calhoun, 1990;and Veum, 1992).…”

“…7 In addition to the core data collected each quarter, extra questions are included on "topical" modules. Topical module questions address major subjects that do not require quarterly updates, 1 The lack of information concerning non-custodial parent is one of the common critiques of studies on child support compliance, as can be seen in Sonestein and Calhoun (1990). The comparison between non-custodial and custodial parent responses is beyond the scope of this study.…”