The Significance of SIPP for Child Support Research and Policy Formulation1

Abstract

Almost all discussions of child support issues start with a review of child support receipts in the United States. The report for 1987 indicates that there were 9.4 million families with a child by a parent absent from the home); that 59070 percent of those families had awards; that of those families with awards, 51 % received all that was due, and 24% received nothing at all. The mean amount of child support due to families with awards was $3017; for those with any payments, the mean payment received was $2710 (Lester, 1990). The bottom line: only 39% of all families with children from an absent father received any child support in 1987. That so few families receive child support, almost 15 years after the passage of federal legislation mandating state child support programs, is often viewed as a failure of American social welfare policy to ensure that all parents contribute to the economic support of their children. Specifically, it