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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.

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]

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]

Increasingly, children live in both parents' homes equally after parental separation, but little is known about whether social security policy supports these shared‐residence families. We propose that a determination of support for shared residence in various policies can be based on two criteria: whether both parents can receive benefits and whether the total amount received is greater than what would have been received if children lived with only one parent. We categorise support for shared residence in child benefits, housing assistance, social assistance, and guaranteed child support in 13 countries (Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the United States), using a 2017 questionnaire, policy documents, and previous research. Norway is the only country supporting shared residence in all four policy domains; three countries do not support shared residence in any. Policies on shared residence across domains are inconsistent. This research highlights the need to clarify policy for these families and to consider whether parents who manage shared parental responsibilities post‐separation should be assisted in new ways. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]