Child support: Ongoing and emerging challenges

Abstract

Child support (or 'child maintenance') is the payment that non-resident parents (mostly fathers) make towards the costs of raising their children after parental separation. In Australia, pursuant to s.66C(1) of the Family Law Act 1975, parents have a 'primary duty' to maintain their children. For the past two decades, the Australian Child Support Scheme has buttressed this moral and legislative mandate. Last year marked the 20th anniversary of the Australian Scheme's operation. Much has happened since the Scheme's humble beginnings in 1988/89. Society has changed markedly in many ways: the Australian population has grown, as has the number of separated parents; cohabitation is on the rise; the changing nature of family life and patterns of women's and men's workforce participation has meant that the parenting roles, expectations and responsibilities of mothers and fathers are in a state of flux; and modern family life is becoming more complex--as evidenced by increasingly diverse family forms and post-separation parenting arrangements. Coincidently, mid-2008 also marked the completion of a radical overhaul of the original Australian Scheme. In a bid to 'modernise' the Scheme, and flowing out of broader family law reform, sweeping changes, as recommended by the Ministerial Taskforce on Child Support, were implemented in three stages during 2006-08. The total reform package became fully operational on 1 July 2008 when a new formula for assessing child support liability came into effect. Child support touches the lives of many Australian families each year. Australia's child support scheme encompasses around 1.5 million separated parents and 1.1 million children. Those who have some connection with it are generally passionate about some aspect of it. So too are others not directly affected by it but who know a loved one, friend or work colleague in the throes of sorting out their lives following relationship breakdown. I too am passionate about child support. Poverty has an ugly face--especially for children. When my own parents separated in the late 1970s, money was tight. I remember going to the local courthouse with my mother to see if something could be done about child support. It was an exercise in futility. One memory in particular stays with me today. My dear late father left a suit behind when he moved out. I can still remember my youngest brother wearing that suit to his first job interview because he had nothing else to wear. At 16 years of age, he didn't quite fill the sleeves or the shape of that suit. Being hungry, having to put on shoes with holes, or wear a school uniform on a school 'casual dress' day, are experiences that some children continue to endure. While a well-operating child support scheme cannot solve the problems of the world, it can lessen the chances that children are thrust into poverty as a result of parents being unable to live under the same roof. More formally, as a social scientist, I have an intellectual fascination with child support because of its fantastically complex interactions with other areas of family policy, and the increasing complexity of the families upon which it impacts. The complexity of child support policy and its intersection with other areas of policy is a challenge for even the most expert in the area. The five research papers in this special issue of Journal of Family Studies certainly give the flavour of some of these challenges. To facilitate uptake of this special issue in library collections, and its possible use as an advanced course reader, it has also been released with an ISBN (978-1-921348-83-9). The first paper by Smyth and Henman (2010) examines the distributional and financial impacts of the introduction of the new Australian Scheme, and provides academic commentary on these predicted impacts. Drawing on data recently published by the Australian Government, the authors find that non-resident parents (mostly fathers) are more likely than resident parents (mostly mothers) to experience net gains under the new Scheme--but importantly a number of complex twists-and-turns are also evident for some groups. …