The Role of Child Support in the Economic Wellbeing of Custodial-Mother Families in Less Developed Countries: The Case of Colombia

Cuesta, Laura; Meyer, Daniel R.

doi:10.1093/lawfam/ebt016

Cited by 19 publications

(30 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…The impact ranges from 12.7% in Paraguay, to approximately 30% in Colombia and Uruguay. Similar to prior findings for Colombia (Cuesta & Meyer, ) and other developed countries (Hakovirta, ; Meyer & Hu, ; Skinner et al, ), our analyses also show that the largest antipoverty effectiveness of child support is observed among children living in families that are receiving this transfer. Child support brings between 30% and 55% of children receiving this transfer out of poverty.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

“…In most of these estimations, authors use country-specific poverty thresholds. Some studies focus on the extent to which child support reduces poverty at the family level (Bartfeld, 2000;Cuesta & Meyer, 2014;Meyer & Hu, 1999), while others present measures at the child level (Cuesta & Meyer, 2014;Hakovirta, 2011). Because of our interest in understanding child support effects on child poverty, in this section we discuss findings from the studies focused on children.…”

Section: The Antipoverty Effectiveness Of Child Supportmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Our study makes a number of contributions to the literature (Bartfeld, ; Cuesta & Meyer, ; Hakovirta, ; Meyer & Hu, ; Skinner et al, ). First, to the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that estimates the antipoverty effectiveness of child support policy in Guatemala, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, and Uruguay, and the first to provide cross‐national estimates of the effects of child support in Latin America.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Empirical evidence shows that single‐parent families receiving child support are less likely to be poor than those who do not receive these transfers (Bartfeld, ; Cuesta & Meyer, ; Hakovirta, ; Meyer & Hu, ; Skinner, Cook, & Sinclair, ). However, the vast majority of this literature is focused on a few developed countries, with little evidence on the antipoverty effectiveness of child support in less affluent nations.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Child support reduces poverty in a wide range of countries (Bartfeld, ; Cuesta & Meyer, ; Hakovirta, ; Meyer & Hu, ; OECD, ; Skinner et al, ; Skinner, Bradshaw, & Davidson, ). The percentage of children in single‐parent families brought out of poverty by child support alone ranged from 6% in the United States (USA) to 50% in Sweden in 2004 (Hakovirta, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

2018

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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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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%