IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/jopoec/v16y2003i1p55-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The roles of child support enforcement and welfare in non-marital childbearing

Author

Listed:
  • Irwin Garfinkel
  • Chien-Chung Huang
  • Sara S. McLanahan
  • Daniel S. Gaylin

Abstract

This paper examines the effects of stronger child support enforcement and declines in welfare benefits on changes in non-marital childbearing between 1980 and 1996. Economic theory suggests that stricter child support enforcement will increase the costs of children for unwed fathers, making them less likely to have a child outside marriage. Reductions in welfare benefits also are expected to increase the costs of non-marital childbearing for both mothers and fathers. We examine these hypotheses, using aggregate state-level data and fixed effects regression models to identify the effects of policies on non-marital birth rates. We find that both stricter child support enforcement and declines in welfare benefits deter non-marital births. However, the estimated effects of child support enforcement are more robust and larger than those of welfare. The estimates imply that in the 1980–1996 period, increases in child support enforcement led to a decline in non-marital birth rates in the range of 6% to 9%, whereas decreases in welfare benefits led to a decline in the range of 2% to 4%. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2003

Suggested Citation

  • Irwin Garfinkel & Chien-Chung Huang & Sara S. McLanahan & Daniel S. Gaylin, 2003. "The roles of child support enforcement and welfare in non-marital childbearing," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 16(1), pages 55-70, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:16:y:2003:i:1:p:55-70
    DOI: 10.1007/s001480100108
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s001480100108
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s001480100108?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jean Knab & Irv Garfinkel & Sara McLanahan & Emily Moiduddin & Cynthia Osborne, 2008. "The Effects of Welfare and Child Support Policies on the Timing and Incidence of Marriage Following a Nonmarital Birth," Working Papers 898, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    2. Laura Tach & Alicia Eads, 2015. "Trends in the Economic Consequences of Marital and Cohabitation Dissolution in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 52(2), pages 401-432, April.
    3. Brandeanna Allen & John Nunley & Alan Seals, 2011. "The Effect of Joint-Child-Custody Legislation on the Child-Support Receipt of Single Mothers," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 124-139, March.
    4. Huang, Chien-Chung & Han, Ke-Qing, 2012. "Child support enforcement in the United States: Has policy made a difference?," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 34(4), pages 622-627.
    5. Leonard M. Lopoo & Kerri M. Raissian, 2014. "U.S. Social Policy and Family Complexity," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 654(1), pages 213-230, July.
    6. Huang, Chien-Chung & Edwards, Richard L., 2009. "The relationship between state efforts and child support performance," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 243-248, February.
    7. Maria Cancian & Carolyn J. Heinrich & Yiyoon Chung, 2013. "Discouraging Disadvantaged Fathers’ Employment: An Unintended Consequence of Policies Designed to Support Families," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(4), pages 758-784, September.
    8. Lincoln H. Groves & Sarah Hamersma & Leonard M. Lopoo, 2018. "Pregnancy Medicaid Expansions and Fertility: Differentiating Between the Intensive and Extensive Margins," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 37(3), pages 461-484, June.
    9. Janna Bergsvik & Agnes Fauske & Rannveig K. Hart, 2020. "Effects of policy on fertility. A systematic review of (quasi)experiments," Discussion Papers 922, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    10. Lincoln H. Groves & Leonard M. Lopoo, 2018. "Federal Financial Aid and Family Formation: Examining the Social Security Student Benefit Program," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 39(3), pages 436-444, September.
    11. Dirk Konietzka & Michaela R. Kreyenfeld, 2005. "Nichteheliche Mutterschaft und soziale Ungleichheit: zur sozioökonomischen Differenzierung der Familienformen in Ost- und Westdeutschland," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2005-001, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    12. Schaubert, Marianna, 2022. "Do courts know how to incentivize? Behavioral response of non-resident parents to child support obligations," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    13. D. Mark Anderson & Claus C. Pörtner, 2014. "High School Dropouts and Sexually Transmitted Infections," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 81(1), pages 113-134, July.
    14. repec:pri:crcwel:wp07-10-ff is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Maria Cancian & Daniel Meyer & Steven Cook, 2011. "The Evolution of Family Complexity from the Perspective of Nonmarital Children," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(3), pages 957-982, August.
    16. Jo Anna Gray & Joe Stone, 2014. "Understanding Measures Of Nonmarital Fertility: The Roles Of Marriage And Access To Human Capital," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 32(2), pages 288-305, April.
    17. Georgios Mavropoulos & Theodore Panagiotidis, 2023. "The role of relative income in the share of children born out-of-wedlock in the USA," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(3), pages 1105-1120, March.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:jopoec:v:16:y:2003:i:1:p:55-70. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.