Child support enforcement (CSE) has experienced dramatic changes in the last decade; however, it is not clear whether child support staff is fully aware of the development. Using data from the New Jersey child support training program (n = 530), this article aims to evaluate the professional knowledge of child support staff. The results show that…

Strong child support enforcement requires fathers to take financial responsibility for their children and may also encourage more responsible sexual behavior. Using the 1997-2001 waves of the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (N = 4,272), this article examines the association between child support enforcement and the sexual activity of…

The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives that encourage unwed motherhood. This suggests that more stringent child support enforcement creates incentives that reduce the likelihood of nonmarital…

Annual state panel data from 1980 to 1999 was examined to understand the effects of child support enforcement (CSE). However, in recent years, it has been found that the CSE among current and former welfare families are dramatically improved.

Some scholars have suggested that a negative consequence of strengthening child support enforcement is to encourage fathers to shift from regular sector to underground employment. We employ data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the relationship between the strength of child support enforcement (CSE) and levels of…

Increasing the probability of paying child support, in addition to increasing resources available for investment in children, also may alter the incentives faced by men to have children out of wedlock. We find that strengthening child support enforcement leads men to have fewer out-of-wedlock births and among those who do become fathers, to do so…

The "Colorado Children's Budget" presents and analyzes investments and spending trends during the past five state fiscal years on services that benefit children. The "Children's Budget" focuses mainly on state investment and spending, with some analysis of federal investments and spending to provide broader context of state…

The expansion of child support enforcement system has increased the child-support receipt rates of never-married and previously married mothers. The studies reveal that if this system were not implemented, the child-support rates would be 1-9 percentage points lower.

Noting that fewer than half the single mothers in the United States receive complete and regular child support payments, this paper discusses reasons for unpaid child support, examines whether stricter enforcement of child support obligations will help solve the overall problem, and proposes another option for solving the problem of unpaid child…

Noting that the child support collection system is an important source of economic support for many Minnesota children and that child support contributes significantly to children's well-being beyond providing financial benefits, this special Kids Count report examines the child support system in Minnesota. The report provides information about…

Although the child support enforcement program has been increasingly successful in obtaining health care coverage for children, changes in the labor market, family structure, health care delivery systems, and social welfare policy require new approaches to ensure that children obtain appropriate health care coverage. This report of the Medical…

This document comprises the 12 issues for 1999 of the "Child Support Report," which explores problems related to child support enforcement, reports on federal and state government child support enforcement initiatives, and summarizes research related to child support. Editorials and information on events and conferences of interest and…

This document is comprised of the 12 monthly issues of the 1998 "Child Support Report," which explores problems related to child support enforcement, reports on federal and state government child support enforcement initiatives, and summarizes research related to child support. Editorials and information on events and conferences of…

This document comprises the 12 issues for 2000 of the "Child Support Report," which explores problems related to child support enforcement, reports on federal and state government child support enforcement initiatives, and summarizes research related to child support. Featured regularly are editorials and information on events of…

In this paper, we explore the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of nonenrolled Black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less in the 1980s and 1990s. We focus on two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young Black men who have been incarcerated and (2)…