Dunning Delinquent Dads: The Effects of Child Support Enforcement on Child Support Receipt by Never Married Women / Richard B. Freeman, Jane Waldfogel.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Freeman, Richard B.

Contributor:

National Bureau of Economic Research.

Waldfogel, Jane.

Series:

Working Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research) no. w6664.

NBER working paper series no. w6664

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Single mothers--United States.

Single mothers.

Physical Description:

1 online resource: illustrations (black and white);

Other Title:

Dunning Delinquent Dads

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, Mass. National Bureau of Economic Research 1998.

Cambridge, Massachusetts : National Bureau of Economic Research, 1998.

Summary:

Since the mid-1970s, the number of single-parent families has increased greatly in the U.S., contributing to the nation's child poverty problem. In response, the federal government and various states have tried to increase child support payments from non-custodial parents. Using data from administrative records and from the child support modules in the Survey of Income Program and Participation (SIPP) and the April and March Current Population Surveys (CPS), we find that the proportion of never married mothers receiving child support rose sharply in the 1980s and 1990s, with the largest increases in states where child support payment were particularly modest. Using within-state variation over time to determine the effect of policy on child support payments, we estimate that increased government expenditures on child support policies are responsible for about one fifth of the upward trend. Our results show that child support expenditures and tougher child support legislation policies work best in tandem. States that both increased expenditures and adopted tougher laws experienced the largest increase in the proportion of never married mothers receiving support.

Notes:

Print version record

July 1998.