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Objective and Background: Previous research shows the benefits of formal child support to children during their childhood; however, the long‐term effect of child support receipt on outcomes as adults has not been studied. This inquiry examines whether adults who received formal child support as children have different labor market outcomes than those who did not. Method: We conducted two sets of analyses with complementary strengths to examine young adults' earnings and employment status. Our primary method exploited experimental variation in child support receipt among welfare participants, as part of the Wisconsin Child Support Demonstration Evaluation; the secondary analyses used propensity score matching to construct statistically equivalent comparison groups drawn from a broader population included in Wisconsin Court Record Data. Results: Across both studies, we found the receipt of child support was associated with a substantive and statistically significant increase in adult earnings; results for employment status were mixed. Conclusion: Findings suggest that formal child support may disrupt patterns of intergenerational disadvantage, reducing the economic vulnerability of children living with resident mothers, and then improving those children's earnings as adults. In addition to contributing to our understanding of the relationship between childhood economic status and adult outcomes, the findings provide critical new information to policymakers assessing family policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding patterns of children’s living arrangements (physical custody) in separated families and the factors related to joint physical custody are crucial as custody patterns have significant implications for the well-being of children and parents. In this study we use the 2021 European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions Survey (EU-SILC) to provide new evidence of children’s post-separation living arrangements in Europe. Our sample (n = 7,461) is restricted to children of separated or divorced parents residing in their mother’s household and having another parent residing outside of the household. We analyze both the individual-level socioeconomic, family-and child-related characteristics, and country-level variables to explain variation in children’s joint physical custody arrangements. We find that joint physical custody is higher among boys and children in the age groups 6–10 and 11–15. We also find that children with more socioeconomically advantaged mothers (higher education, employed, higher income, homeowners) are more likely to have joint physical custody. Importantly, controlling for individual-level characteristics, both the legal and the gender equality context shape the prevalence of joint physical custody, suggesting that country-level policies and norms may be important. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on fathering has substantially increased but we still know relatively little about whether and how fathers' own perspectives on their parenting differ across a variety of family situations. We estimate associations between nonresident fathers' family types and nonresident fathers' perceptions of the quality of their parenting and their relationships with their children, using data from the Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration program on lower-income nonresident fathers (n = 5,835) and logistic regressions. High-quality parenting is more likely to be reported by nonresident fathers with multiple-partner fertility and both resident and nonresident children than either those with multiple-partner fertility and only nonresident children or those with single-partner fertility. High-quality relationships with children are more likely to be reported by those with single-partner fertility than those with multiple-partner fertility. These findings suggest the importance of resident children in fathers' perceptions of their parenting and highlight the difficulties of parenting across multiple households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Determining whether a household is ‘in poverty,’ requires identifying a resource unit, typically consisting of individuals who both co-reside and pool resources. High levels of family complexity and fluidity in living arrangements among contemporary American families, particularly those that include children, have complicated this task. We leverage novel survey data from Wisconsin to examine the implications of a range of alternative criteria for identifying the resource unit used to measure poverty. We further consider the extent to which unit members, under alternative criteria, exchange food-related resources both within and outside of the unit. Our results reveal inconsistencies between alternative measures of the resource unit and those used to define the resource unit for the Official Poverty Measure (OPM) and Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) in the United States, and we find that the SPM unit is generally more consistent than the OPM unit with alternative measures of the resource unit. In addition, we find substantial levels of food resource exchanges among adults who are both inside and outside the resource unit. Together, these findings demonstrate the challenge of appropriately defining the resource unit for measuring poverty and suggest that both the OPM and SPM may not fully account for the availability, amount, or composition of resources for many households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this research note, we demonstrate that trends in the likelihood of child support agreements differ by marital history (i.e., never-married vs. ever-married) and by whether measures rely on the stock of families (i.e., allthose in which children live apart from a parent) or the flow (i.e., those that include children who newly live apart from a parent) in a given year. While previous research has highlighted difference by marital history, the contrast between stock and flow is a new contribution. Trends are typically measured with reference to the stock of cases, even while the flow of cases, which more immediately reflects concurrent policy changes, is more relevant in many contexts. Interpretations of recent declines in child support agreements in the stock of cases--referenced as evidence for both mandating participation and the impracticality of requiring child support-- may be better informed by considering the flow of cases. We find the flow of previously married mothers increasingly likely to have child support agreements while the likelihood is relatively consistent over time for nevermarried mothers. For both groups, using the flow measure, we find notable increases in agreements without payments due in the most recent period. These findings underscore the importance of differentiating stock and flow, and by marital history, in considering the proportion with agreements as an indicator of the effectiveness of current policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Increasingly, parents in separated families equally share care of their children post-separation. In this article we extend a well-known family policy model to generate hypotheses about the level of child support to be paid by separated parents when children live primarily with their mother ('sole custody') in contrast to when children spend equal time with both parents ('shared care'). We test these hypotheses with data collected from thirteen countries. In sole custody cases, countries with an earner-carer policy model do have lower child support expectations than countries with a traditional family policy model or a market-oriented model, as predicted. Countries with a traditional family policy model do have the highest orders in the shared case, as predicted. However, there is as much variation within models as there is between, suggesting new analytic frameworks for considering child support in family policy need to be developed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We provide an overview of child support policy in high-income countries, highlighting differences in institutional arrangements, the amount of child support due, and the amount of child support received. We show that the United States expects high levels of child support from nonresident parents when compared to other countries, that noncompliance is a problem across countries, and that most European countries deal with nonpayment of child support by providing guarantees of public support for children and resident parents. The guarantee schemes vary in terms of eligibility and generosity. Throughout, we find that child support policy approaches differ across countries. A key policy implication from this review is that the United States may be expecting too much child support from nonresident parents and that it could consider guaranteeing a modest amount of public support to single-parent households. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most children in the United States will spend at least part of their childhood living apart from one of their parents; the child support system is designed to ensure that they nonetheless receive financial support. While the system is largely effective when noncustodial parents have substantial regular earnings, many noncustodial parents, including a disproportionate share of those whose children live in poverty, have limited earnings and ability to pay child support. The system's response to nonpayment is primarily "sticks," that is, threats and punishments. Nonexperimental evaluations of alternative approaches have shown promise. The National Child Support Noncustodial Parent Employment Demonstration (CSPED), a large‐scale random‐assignment evaluation enrolling more than 10,000 noncustodial parents across 18 locations in eight states, was designed to test the effectiveness of an alternative approach—adjusting child support orders, reducing punitive enforcement, and offering employment and parenting services. We find that CSPED, using carrots in place of sticks, substantially increased the satisfaction of noncustodial parents with child support services, lowered the amount of support owed, and increased noncustodial parents' sense of responsibility for their children. However, CSPED had limited to no effects on child support compliance, child support payments, or employment outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND While a striking rise in shared physical custody after divorce has been observed in Wisconsin and some European countries, the same trend in shared custody has not been documented in US national data. OBJECTIVE We provide new evidence on the time trend in shared physical custody after divorce in the United States. METHODS We use eight waves of data from the Current Population Survey -- Child Support Supplement to estimate logit models and conduct a formal decomposition. RESULTS The likelihood of shared physical custody after divorce more than doubled in the United States from before 1985 until 2010--2014, from 13% to 34%. Non-linear probability (logit) models show that non-Hispanic Whites and more advantaged individuals are more likely to report shared physical custody. Both sequential multivariate models and a more formal decomposition show that the increase cannot be explained by changes in the characteristics of those divorcing; rather we find that several characteristics become more strongly associated with shared physical custody over time. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that shared physical custody is increasing in the United States as a whole, and this increase appears to reflect changing norms and policies that favor shared custody. These changing patterns have important implications for children's living arrangements and for the parental investments that children receive after their parents' divorce -- and more broadly for the rise in inequality across families over recent decades. CONTRIBUTION This paper complements previous analyses using court record data from a single US state (Wisconsin) and shows that a large increase in shared physical custody after divorce has occurred in the United States as a whole over the past three decades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the USA instituted child support agencies in the late 1900s and had some policies that resulted in having lowered governmental expenditures when child support was paid. Building on previous research comparing these four countries, this article examines the extent to which these countries currently use explicit cost recovery policies, implicit policies revealed in programme interactions, and fees. Using data from country informants on hypothetical families, we show the percentage of child support payments that are retained through these different tools. In addition to characterizing country approaches, we discuss advantages and disadvantages of different cost-recovery strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although previous qualitative research in the United States suggests that noncustodial parents have difficult experiences with the child support system, there is no large-scale study of satisfaction. We use data on more than 1,800 socioeconomically disadvantaged noncustodial parents to explore their level of satisfaction and whether it is related to later child support payments. In contrast to qualitative research, we find that nearly half the noncustodial parents are satisfied with child support services. The level of satisfaction is found to be related to several agency actions and agency inflexibility. Non-Hispanic Black noncustodial parents who are satisfied pay more in support than those who were not satisfied; no relationship between satisfaction and payments is detected for other race and ethnicity groups or the sample as a whole. Our findings provide implications for policy makers and practitioners for understanding participant satisfaction and effectively addressing it in policies and services. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child support income has the potential to substantially reduce economic hardship for children living apart from their fathers, but many fathers have limited earnings and are unable to pay the support they owe. Understanding their employment barriers has implications for their child support payments and for child support agency services. Using data from a survey of nearly 3,800 noncustodial fathers in seven states, we find that more than half of the fathers reported barriers related to transportation, limited job skills, and criminal records. Although results vary somewhat across models, fathers who reported that transportation difficulties or a criminal record were barriers to employment had substantially lower earnings and poorer child support outcomes. Moreover, Black fathers with a criminal record had particularly poor outcomes. The results highlight the need for a more comprehensive approach to helping noncustodial fathers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child support policies typically call for noncustodial fathers to provide their children financial support. However, setting orders too high may be counterproductive, resulting in lower payments and compliance and less regular payments. But how high is too high? Prior research is dated and inconsistent. We reexamine the relationship between the burden of orders and payments, compliance, and regularity. Using fixed-effects models and administrative data from Wisconsin, we find that payments increase until orders exceed 30 percent of earnings—that is, relatively high orders maximize the financial support children receive. However, compliance and regularity decline with higher burdens—the more that is expected, the less likely fathers are to meet expectations. Subgroup analyses show that payments do not increase with burden levels among low-income fathers. We discuss implications for current debates about how much child support should be expected from noncustodial fathers, particularly those with limited abilities to pay. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Little research exists on the contributions that noncustodial fathers make to children they have had in different families. We use baseline survey data from an intervention for noncustodial parents who are behind in their child support payments to examine formal and informal payments. We explore whether noncustodial fathers who have had children with multiple mothers provide any support to children from older relationships, and whether they provide less to these children than to children from their most recent relationship (their youngest nonresident child). We find that fathers are more likely to provide informal support to their youngest child, but many fathers are also providing to their oldest child; the likelihood of formal payments does not differ. The results suggest that fathers may prioritize younger children rather than trade families; these have important implications for understanding the role of the formal child support system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document the dramatic decline in the United States of mother sole custody arrangements following divorce. Our empirical analysis uses Wisconsin court records data spanning more than two decades (1988-2010). Updating earlier analyses that showed significant increases in shared custody, we estimate that shared custody (where children spend at least 25% of time with each parent) has now replaced sole-mother custody as the most common post-divorce parenting arrangement-accounting for just over half (50.3%) of all cases in the most recent cohort available. We discuss the institutional context for these changes in custody in the United States, the sociodemographic factors associated with custody outcomes, and the implications for policy and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In most developed countries, children in lone parent families face a high risk of poverty. A partial solution commonly sought in English-speaking nations is to increase the amounts of private child maintenance paid by the other parent. However, where lone parent families are in receipt of social assistance benefits, some countries hold back a portion of the child maintenance to reduce public expenditures. This partial ‘pass-through’ treats child maintenance as a substitute for cash benefits which conceivably neutralises its poverty reduction potential. Such neutralising effects are not well understood and can be obscured further when more subtle interactions between child maintenance systems and social security systems operate. This research makes a unique contribution to knowledge by exposing the hidden interaction effects operating in similar child maintenance systems across four countries: the United Kingdom, United States (Wisconsin), Australia and New Zealand. We found that when child maintenance is counted as income in calculating benefit entitlements, it can reduce the value of cash benefits. Using model lone parent families with ten different employment and income scenarios, we show how the poverty reduction potential of child maintenance is affected by whether it is treated as a substitute for, or a complement to, cash benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When a parent has another child with a new partner, a significant effect on parents and children is likely, making factors associated with multiple-partner fertility of interest to policy makers. For single mothers, one potential policy-relevant factor influencing their subsequent fertility with a new partner is child support income. However, the direction and magnitude of any effect is not well-established. This study documents the simple negative relationship between child support and nonmarital fertility with a new partner in our sample of low-income unmarried mothers. We then take advantage of a policy experiment that resulted in randomly assigned differences in child support income to investigate its effects. We find no support for a negative causal relationship between child support receipt and nonmarital fertility with a new partner, instead finding suggestive evidence that mothers with more child support income are slightly more likely to have a subsequent nonmarital birth with a new partner. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider the intersection between two striking U.S. trends: dramatic increases in the imprisonment of fathers and increases in the proportion of mothers who have children with more than one partner (multiple-partner fertility, or MPF). Using matched longitudinal administrative data that provide unusually comprehensive and accurate information about the occurrence and timing of imprisonment, fertility, and MPF for the population of the state of Wisconsin, we consider the relationship between paternal imprisonment and MPF among unwed mothers. Employing discrete-time event history analysis with multinomial logistic regression, we model the occurrence and timing of the mother's second birth, distinguishing between a birth with the same father and a birth with a different father, and distinguishing between current imprisonment and a history of imprisonment. We find that current imprisonment is associated with an increased likelihood of MPF and a decreased likelihood of fertility with the same father (compared with no additional birth) and that a history of imprisonment is associated with increased MPF in some models but not in our preferred model. To control for unobserved heterogeneity among mothers and assess the evidence of a causal effect of fathers' imprisonment, we also employ the case-time-control method, a fixed-effects method for the analysis of nonrepeated events. Results suggest that fathers' current imprisonment may increase mothers' MPF. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite substantial policy attention to increasing the number of custodial parents with child support orders, the proportion reporting that they are owed child support is falling. Potential explanations for this include increases in shared custody, increases in the number of noncustodial parents who have low incomes ðor incomes lower than the custodial parentÞ, and growing discretion to decide whether to participate in the formal child support system. We use data on about 4,000 divorces in Wisconsin that allow us to evaluate these alternative explanations, differentiating between divorces in an earlier period ð1996-98Þ and a later one ð2004-7Þ. A multivariate analysis and a standard decomposition approach both show that changes in custody, relative incomes, the freedom to choose child support, and other characteristics explain about half of the decline in the likelihood of orders, but about half remains unexplained. Changes in custody are particularly important in explaining the trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine whether low-income mothers receive child care from their children's nonresident fathers or nonresident fathers' relatives, particularly asking whether mothers who have children with more than one nonresident father are more or less likely to receive child care. Using data from the Survey of Wisconsin Works Families, we find that about 44 percent of low-income mothers of children with nonresident fathers receive some child care from nonresident fathers or nonresident fathers' relatives. Logit analyses show that those who have children with more than one nonresident father are more likely to receive child care than those who have children with a single nonresident father. The research shows that it is important to count child-care provision among the types of support that nonresident fathers provide and that, when examining assistance mothers receive from nonresident fathers, we should consider the package of support that a mother receives from all nonresident fathers and their relatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using cross-sectional data from the National Household Surveys (2004-2012), this study presents the trend in child support receipt in Peru over this period and factors associated with child support receipt. In both descriptive and multivariate logit analyses, the likelihood of receiving support among single mothers increased substantially. Some factors related to receiving support are similar to those in other countries, particularly those related to the strength of ties between the noncustodial father and the single mother and their children. But other factors differ, and the results show an important pattern in which some of those who are more disadvantaged are more likely to receive support, perhaps because they have more needs, while other areas of disadvantage are associated with a lowered likelihood of receipt. Research and policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors offer opinions on nontraditional families in the U.S. The increase in nontraditional families such as families headed by single mothers, families of same-sex marriages and families of divorced couples is said to pose complexities which negatively affect the efficiency of economic and social programs aimed at families in the U.s.

An introduction is presented to articles in this issue including articles on the impact of income on family structure, on the impact on families of men prisoners and on family complexity as experienced by children.

This article examines the extent to which child support is helping custodial-mother families move out of poverty or move closer to the poverty line in Colombia. Data come from the 2008 Quality of Life Survey, which provides information for 3,359 custodial-mother families. We calculate poverty rates and poverty gaps using both pre-child-support and post-child-support income, for all custodial-mother families and the subgroup of these families receiving child support. Results show that among those poor families who received child support, it brought 32 per cent of them out of poverty, and had even larger effects on extreme poverty. For those who receive it, child support reduces the poverty gap by about one-third. International comparisons suggest that single parents in Colombia are doing much worse than single parents in Scandinavian countries but about the same with respect to those in some Anglo-Saxon countries. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The authors examined whether nonresident fathers provide informal support to their children and whether support stops if their ex-partner goes on to have a child with a new man. A logistic regression analysis of longitudinal survey and administrative data for 434 women who received welfare in Wisconsin showed that fathers are less likely to provide informal support when their ex-partner has a child with a new partner. Alternative models that control for unobserved characteristics suggest somewhat different results, providing stronger evidence of declines in support that can be shared across family members than in support that can be directed to a particular child. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When parents have children from multiple partners, the resulting complex families challenge conventions concerning parents' rights and responsibilities. These challenges are particularly salient for child support policies, which articulate parents' obligations to their children and determine the amount of support due. Data from Wisconsin suggest that complex families are fairly common and that nonresident fathers' earnings in these families are typically quite low. The prevalence of these families and their economic vulnerability make expectations about child support particularly important, but family complexity creates tension among key principles underlying the child support system. This study simulates several potential policy regimes, estimating support for hypothetical cases and the actual child support caseload. The findings suggest that different regimes can result in vastly different amounts due and no system is ideal. The most feasible approach maybe to set support for each child at a given percentage of a nonresident parent's income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The declining availability of public assistance and increasing reliance on child support as a key income source for single-parent families raise questions about the adequacy and consistency of support. Using detailed Wisconsin administrative records for custodial mothers who obtained a new child support order in 2000, this study examines the regularity of child support receipt and its contribution to the regularity of total income among custodial-mother families over a 5-year period. Findings suggest variation in levels of regularity; among mothers who receive support in a given year, slightly less than half consistently receive a regular amount. The characteristics of those with any receipt of child support are found to differ on some measures from those of mothers with regular receipt.The findings also show that child support generally increases the regularity of the mothers family income, especially that for mothers in low-income families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We document the incidence and evolution of family complexity from the perspective of children. Following a cohort of firstborn children whose mothers were not married at the time of their birth, we consider family structure changes over the first 10 years of the child's life-considering both full and half-siblings who are coresidential or who live in another household. We rely on detailed longitudinal administrative data from Wisconsin that include information on the timing of subsequent births to the mother and father, and detailed information on earnings, child support, and welfare. We find that 60% of firstborn children of unmarried mothers have at least one half-sibling by age 10. Our results highlight the importance of having fertility information for both fathers and mothers: estimates of the proportion of children with half-siblings would be qualitatively lower if we had fertility information on only one parent. Complex family structures are more likely for children of parents who are younger or who have low earnings and for those in larger urban areas. Children who have half-siblings on their mother's side are also more likely to have half-siblings on their father's side, and vice versa, contributing to very complex family structures-and potential child support arrangements-for some children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over time, public policy changes have strengthened the private child support system while reducing access to public support—welfare. Given the especially limited availability of public support, nonresident fathers’ economic contributions through child support can play an important role in helping children to avoid poverty. In this article, the authors review evidence on nonresident fathers’ ability to pay support, provide an overview of the way child support policies affect disadvantaged fathers, and propose new directions for child support policy. The authors argue that the current work-focused safety net, which aims to require and help to enable disadvantaged mothers to work, creates a context in which government should similarly require and help to enable all fathers, even those who are disadvantaged, to work and pay child support. However, reforms are needed to make this a realistic expectation, given many fathers’ limited employment options and complex families. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

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. © 2010 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent research suggests that program participants have limited knowledge of the rules governing social programs. These knowledge gaps limit program effectiveness. This article uses a unique survey of Wisconsin welfare participants to explore factors associated with whether single mothers have accurate knowledge of child support rules. It also assesses the accuracy of knowledge gained from their own experience, formal sources, and informal sources. Multivariate analyses document the difficulty participants have in understanding new rules. They also highlight the roles that formal sources and clients' own experience play in obtaining accurate program information. Results suggest the possibility that informal sources provide inaccurate information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study identified the employment and earnings trajectories of welfare recipients over six years for a sample of 14,150 women who entered the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program (TANF) in Wisconsin in its first year. Wisconsin longitudinal administrative data were used to examine differential patterns of mid-term (three years) and long-term (six years) employment and earnings success. We developed a conceptual approach to categorizing participants' employment and earnings trajectory groups. Results indicate substantial diversity in employment and earnings patterns. Some women have consistently positive outcomes, others show steady improvements over time, and others have inconsistent patterns that end strong. We found that 46% of the sample fit into one of three successful employment trajectories, and 22% fit into one of three successful earnings trajectories. Results also reveal that many women who were successful in the mid-term were not able to sustain their progress. For example, only 56% of those who were earning successes in the mid-term were still successful in the long-term. Finally, logistic regression models were used to compare the factors associated with mid-term and long-term success and with employment success and earnings success. Implications of findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article investigates whether mothers receiving public assistance in the U.S. should be allowed to keep any child support paid on behalf of their children rather than having that support substituting government costs. It has been found that in most U.S. states Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and child support administrative are offset by child support paid on behalf on TANF participants. Also, paternity establishment occurs more quickly when custodial mothers keep all child support paid on their behalf.

This article examines the relationships among child support orders, child support payments, and the compliance rate (payments compared to orders). It uses administrative data from Wisconsin, examining 3 years of orders and payments by fathers who had their first order for child support to a particular mother in 2000. Using fixed-effects models that attempt to control for unobserved factors, the authors find that the burden of orders (i.e., the proportion of earnings owed for child support) is positively associated with the size of payments but negatively associated with compliance. An alternative method yields the same conclusions. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is little research on knowledge of the policy rules that could affect individuals, either in general or in evaluations of new programs. The lack of research is surprising, given that knowledge gaps could limit the effectiveness of reforms or lead to incorrect inferences regarding the effects of a policy change. In this article, we use survey data to examine the level and sources of welfare participants' policy knowledge in the context of a substantial change in child support and welfare policy in Wisconsin. We find very low levels of knowledge of child support policy rules. Multivariate analyses suggest that people tend to learn policy rules by experience; we find less consistent support for knowledge being primarily imparted through interactions with caseworkers. A difference-in-difference analysis suggests that if participants had been more knowledgeable, program impacts would have been larger. Implications of this research for policy implementation and policy evaluations are discussed. © 2007 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Welfare programs changed dramatically in 1996. Caseloads dropped by more than 9 million recipients over an eight-year period, and millions entered the labor market in the wake of these changes. Since the start of the "welfare revolution," research has emerged to document the new ways former welfare recipients are using federal entitlement programs as they navigate and negotiate the "post-AFDC" era. In this article, the authors examine patterns of participation in TANF, the Food Stamp program, and Medicaid in Wisconsin. Very distinct patterns of participation emerged among the three programs: a single short period of receipt was common for TANF, cycling was typical for food stamps, and a long spell was the standard for Medicaid. The authors also explored multiple program participation over a three-year period. Analysis revealed interactions and transitions not normally considered in this line of research. One key finding was the high number of transitions on and off benefits during these three years when the three programs were considered simultaneously. Policy implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Family complexity that results when adults have children with multiple partners (multiple partner fertility) is quite common. It also has important implications for understanding child support outcomes and for designing and evaluating welfare and family policy. Using a unique set of merged administrative data, this article provides the first comprehensive documentation of levels of family complexity among a broad sample of welfare recipients. The analyses suggest that family complexity is very common and also that complexity is associated with systematically different child support outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents a study on allternative measures of economic success among Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) participants. Survey and administrative data which was taken from a sample of TANF participants illustrate the sensitivity of conclusions to alternative ways of measuring each indicator. Also considered is the extent to which dependence, poverty, and hardship coincide, or capture important differences in outcomes. The principles underlying TANF reforms have implications for appropriate measures of economic well-being, as the empirical importance of these implications demonstrates.

Although a number of current policy initiatives presume that nonresident fathers could provide substantially more income for their (welfare-attached) children, several factors lead to skepticism. This article uses administrative and survey data to describe the characteristics of fathers of welfare recipients. The results suggest that most of these fathers have limited economic resources and, like the mothers of their children, often face substantial barriers to providing for themselves and their families. Balancing the needs and obligations of low-income mothers and fathers is difficult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article documents patterns and correlates of child support compliance among fathers of welfare recipients in Wisconsin. We introduce the concept of discretionary obligors (because payment results in part from voluntary cooperation) and nondiscretionary obligors (because payment results from routine enforcement mechanisms) to differentiate between fathers with weak versus strong connections to formal employment, and we demonstrate that different factors underlie the compliance patterns of these groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We use administrative data from Wisconsin to compare employment, earnings, and income outcomes for welfare leavers under early reforms and under the later, more stringent Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. We find substantially higher rates of exit in the later period. Later leavers are somewhat more likely to work, but their earnings are lower. We also make a pre-post comparison of individual employment and income experiences, examining a leaver's outcomes during a calendar quarter of welfare receipt with these outcomes a year after leaving welfare. On average, substantial earnings growth is outweighed by declines in benefits, resulting in reduced total measured net income. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current welfare reforms attempt to move low-income women with children from reliance on welfare to work. The logic of some current efforts relies on the thesis that employment, even in low-paying jobs, leads eventually to self-sufficiency. With data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, the authors analyzed the relationship between work history and economic success during the first five years after women leave welfare. They found that over time median wages and hours worked increased and that earnings generally improved. Nonetheless, even in the fifth year, only one in four consistently worked full-time. Although current welfare reforms are focused on moving women into jobs quickly, results cited in this article suggest that employment itself is not a guarantee of economic success. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Current Population Survey is used to examine the antipoverty effectiveness of child support, social insurance, and welfare among mother only families in 1995. Child support brought about 6-7 percent of pre-transfer poor mother-only families over the poverty line, an effect similar to that of social insurance and welfare. A brief trend analysis shows that child support's antipoverty effectiveness has been growing. Some potential reasons why child support's effect is still so small in the face of substantial changes in child support policy are hypothesized. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses affects of three government sponsored programs that offered refundable tax credit for children, national health insurance and an assured child support benefit for families with children, operating on their own and together. Effects of programs interacting with one another would be much larger than the sum of effects produced by each program alone. As a result of interaction effects, poverty rates drop by 43 percent rather than only 34 percent and AFDC caseloads shrink by 22 percent instead of only two percent. The implication for social work is that multifaceted universal programs are an especially effective means to combat poverty and welfare dependence. To remedy these shortcomings derived from overtargeting, government-sponsored studies of the U.S. welfare system in the 1960s advocated lowering the benefit reduction rate in welfare programs and extending eligibility for welfare benefits to two-parent, working poor families. Academic studies in 1980s generally focused on the shortcomings of income testing per se.

Changes in the living arrangements of children have implications for social policy and children's well-being. Understanding who gets custody on divorce--mother, father, or both sharing custody--can also inform our understanding of family organization and the merits of alternative theories of marriage and divorce. We examine physical-custody outcomes among recent Wisconsin divorces in an effort to understand the factors associated with shared custody as well as mother-sole custody and father-sole custody. Although mother-sole custody remains the dominant arrangement, shared custody has increased over a nine-year period. We find that the probability of shared custody increases with parent's income. Prior marital history, parents' ages, the age and gender of children, and the legal process also have an impact on the probability of shared custody. In contrast to shared custody, the probability of father-sole custody decreases with parent's income, while the relationship with other significant factors is generally similar. The notable exception is that, unlike shared custody, we find no evidence for an increase over time in the probability of father-sole custody. We also find that when the father has a higher proportion of the couple's total income, both shared custody and father-sole custody are more likely. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on the rapid growth rates among father-only families in the U.S. The growth in the number of single-parent families in the U.S. during the second half of this century has been well documented. Recent research has revealed increases in both father-only and mother-only families, although the number of father-only families is still fairly small. After decreasing during the 1960s and early 1970s, the percentage of single-parent families headed by fathers began to increase in 1974. By 1989 father-only families constituted more than 15 per cent of all single-parent families, roughly the same level as in the early 1960s. The unit of analysis for this study is a family with children under age 18. The data come from the Public Use Microdata Samples drawn from the 1960 through 1990 United States decennial censuses. These samples are large enough to enable researchers to focus on groups that arc not very prevalent. Goal of this article is to categorize each family with children as a mother-only family, a father-only family, a husband-wife family, or a cohabiting family.

This paper provides estimates of the effect of child support on exiting and reentering welfare for a sample of divorced women in Wisconsin. Modest amounts of child support do not have large effects on exiting welfare in this sample. The percentage of women who return to welfare is higher than has been reported previously. Receiving child support significantly decreases the likelihood of returning to welfare. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article traces poverty status and welfare use in the five years following an exit from the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). The goal of the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 is examined, and its success is judged. The authors found that women with higher earning potential had a higher level of success, especially those with higher levels of education and fewer/older children. More than forty percent of women, however, remain poor even five years after exiting the AFDC program.