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The impact of child support on child health

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  • Reagan A. Baughman

    (University of New Hampshire)

Abstract

The broad goals of child support policy are to keep children in single-parent families out of poverty and to make sure that their material needs are met. One potentially important, but relatively understudied, set of measures of child well-being are health outcomes. A fixed-effects analysis of data from the Child and Young Adult file of the 1979 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth shows that, conditional upon receipt of some amount of child support, higher payment levels are associated with significantly greater odds of having private health insurance coverage and significantly lower odds of poor or declining health status. These effects persist even after controlling for other factors that are likely to be correlated with child support payments, including total family income and paternal visitation patterns.

Suggested Citation

  • Reagan A. Baughman, 2017. "The impact of child support on child health," Review of Economics of the Household, Springer, vol. 15(1), pages 69-91, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:reveho:v:15:y:2017:i:1:d:10.1007_s11150-014-9268-3
    DOI: 10.1007/s11150-014-9268-3
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Lee, Daeyong & Weems, Carl F. & Rouse, Heather L. & Melby, Janet N. & Zhao, Feng & Bartel, Maya & Goudy, Kathryn, 2020. "Targeted child support enforcement and its association with child support payments: Evidence from a program evaluation," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Child support; Health; Health insurance; Family structure;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • I12 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Health - - - Health Behavior
    • J12 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Marriage; Marital Dissolution; Family Structure
    • H31 - Public Economics - - Fiscal Policies and Behavior of Economic Agents - - - Household

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