Support Obligations Research Articles

Should Child Support Obligations Continue for Children Attending College?

Beliefs regarding nonresidential parents' obligation to assist with college expenses were examined using a factorial vignette design with a random sample of 407 participants. Obligations to assist continue providing child support for children beyond the age of majority were contingent upon children attending college. However, only 52% of respondents believed that the nonresidential parent should continue paying child support for children in college. Differing obligation beliefs were largely rooted in divergent childrearing philosophies. This suggests that college support laws may interfere with what the U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly asserted is a fundamental parental right to direct children's upbringing, including education, without undue governmental interference.

Psychosocial Mediators of a Walking Intervention Among African American Women

Many Americans are sedentary and would reduce their disease risk if they increased their levels of physical activity to 30 minutes of moderate activity most days of the week. This descriptive exploratory study addresses how to maximize adherence to a physical activity prescription. A sample of 14 older African American women enrolled in a walking intervention study participated in three focus-group discussions of barriers to and facilitators of walking. Focus groups were audiotaped, transcribed, and examined by three nurse researchers using analytic induction, content analysis, and grounded theory techniques. Women who participated in the focus-group discussions identified lack of family support, perceived or real family obligations, personal health status, and neighborhood safety as factors influencing adherence to physical activity. A necessary component of successful walking maintenance was the confidence and support of the woman's family. The most compelling reason for continued walking in this group was to help others.

Assessing the Needs of Low-Income Parents who Owe Child Support: Where Can the Social Workers Make a Difference?

For social work practitioners to incorporate the needs of low-income noncustodial parents into their provided services successfully, they need to be aware of the wide range of financial difficulties and social problems experienced by these clients. Using survey and administrative data, this article provides a formal assessment of the support service needs of low-income noncustodial parents, mostly fathers, with an active child support obligation. Results indicate that the needs of many noncustodial fathers are not being met adequately. A discussion of the potential role of practitioners in assisting the noncustodial parent in complying with their child support obligations is included.

Reengineering the Child Support Scheme: An Australian Perspective on the British Government's Proposals

After years of problems with the Child Support Scheme in Britain, the Government has decided to attempt reform again, less than four years after a previous major change was implemented in 2003. The author evaluates these reform proposals, drawing upon his experience in leading a recent major review of child support policy in Australia. While many of the reform measures offer a sensible way forward for child support policy, Britain risks going backwards in terms of community acceptance of the child support obligation. The Government needs to consider the likely impact of its policy settings on private agreements about child support. Ways are proposed both to protect the Treasury and to promote the wellbeing of children by adopting different policy settings that ensure the resident parent has an incentive to bargain for the level of child support required by the new formula. The new formula itself is evaluated in the light of the international research on the costs of children. Ways are also suggested for developing a co‐ordinated approach across government to the provision of support services for parents who do not live together.

Arrears Forgiveness

Arrears forgiveness has been proposed as a method of reducing uncollectible state-owed arrears and encouraging low-income obligors to pay their current child support obligations. Pre-and post-progr...

Family, Social Inequalities, and the Persuasive Force of Interpersonal Obligation

To date, the privatization of the costs of social inequalities for women and children has been criticized predominantly from a policy perspective. This article seeks to make a stronger case against remedying social inequalities through private law obligations by addressing the theoretical difficulties with such privatization with a particular focus on familial obligations. I take my core examples from the current Canadian understanding of the spousal and child support obligations. My analysis proposes and proceeds on the basis of a new discourse for obligations traditionally grouped together as “Family Law” obligations: first, interpersonal obligations, which arise from and tie together two citizens through either a single interaction or through their relationship as a whole; second, social obligations, which are owed by the community as a whole to individual citizens. I argue that the persuasive force of the focus on an individual's responsibility for another's financial need has obscured the reality of the state's obligation, the broader social obligation, to respond to this need. I conclude with a discussion of the consequences of my analysis for the future of the spousal and child support obligations. If we deny an expanded role to these support obligations, can we do so in a way that avoids leaving the impoverished in an even more precarious position?

Choice of Law in International Child Support Obligations: Hague or Vague, and Does it Matter?- An American Perspective

This article explores, through American eyes, the choice of law rules associated with the child support aspects of the proposed Hague Convention on the International Recovery of Child Support and Other Forms of Family Maintenance. It considers the role these rules play in capturing the “construct” that is the “family” for the purposes of child support by implicitly determining who is an acceptable claimant and who is an appropriate obligor. In addition, the rules determine which jurisdiction's law will establish the amount of support and thus, implicitly, they determine which jurisdiction sets the standards for family “performance”. American constitutional law demands a connection between the individual to be burdened and the jurisdiction imposing that burden. The proposed rules seem designed to take this into account, but doing so requires the scheme to abandon a preference for relying on the law of the creditor's habitual residence. American child support proceedings use pre-established guidelines to determine the amount of any child support award. These guidelines, which are premised on economic conditions in the individual states, are not suited to dealing with international disputes. The cases suggest that American courts are reluctant to abandon the efficiency of the guidelines in favor of detailed fact based analysis, even if the result is an “inappropriate” order - certainty comes at a price.

Les contributions privées au financement de la dépendance dans le cadre de l'obligation alimentaire : pratiques judiciaires et implications distributives

This paper seeks to analyze economic transfers relating to the financing of long-term care for the elderly, as they arise from court decisions on the legal duty to financially support ascendants. The first section reviews the computation of the support obligation based on a sample of court decisions between 2000 and 2003. The financial contribution rule estimated from the decisions is found to be anti-redistributive in interfamily distribution terms but redistributive in intrafamily distribution terms. The second section uses the DESTINE model to simulate a representative sample of persons aged 75 or older and those legally responsible for their financial support, and uses the sample to examine the distributive effects of the financial contribution rule.

,,Ehrende Auszeichnung“ oder ,,Aufforderung zur Leistung eines Geldbeitrages“?

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, many prominent German and Austrian scientists declined the election as a member of the Kaiserliche Leopoldinisch-Carolinische Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher (in short: Leopoldina) because they were not willing to pay the entrance and membership fees of about one fifth of the monthly salary of a full professor. Many of theses candidates simply did not answer to the president’s notification of being elected. Some of them came up with ,,various reasons not to be discussed”, or referred to their individual financial situation.The physicist Heinrich Hertz, who had become famous by the discovery of electromagnetic waves in the late 1880ies, was the only elected candidate who protested bluntly against what he considered as an unworthy procedure. Although it would not have been a much of a burden for him to afford the requested entrance and membership fees, he refused to adhere to an association whose statues combined the award of an academic distinction with the obligation of financial support. In two letters addressed to Leopoldina President Carl Hermann Knoblauch,Hertz gave his reasons for declining his election to the academy. In the present article, Hertz’s letters to Knoblauch are fully published for the first time.

Who is a 'Parent'? 'Standing in the Place of a Parent' & Canada's Child Support Guidelines S.5

Canada has a broad and functional approach to the legal definition of the family, and gives significant legal recognition to social parents, may seek custody or access, and will often have child support obligations. This paper deals with the controversies concerning the obligations of those stand in the place of a parent under the definition in Canada's Divorce Act, or demonstrate a settled intent to treat a child as their own under provincial legislation such as the Ontario Family Law Act, to pay an amount of child support that as appropriate under the Child Support Guidelines s. 5. The issues that face lawyers and judges in dealing with cases involving the child support obligations of those are not biological parents - most frequently cases about the child support obligations of step-fathers - are an aspect of one of the most contentious issue in family law today, both in Canada and other countries, the question of who is a parent. The paper includes consideration of the way in which Canadian courts have dealt with cases of paternity fraud.

Does the Application of Child Support Guidelines at the Time of Court Action Affect Fathers' Subsequent Compliance with Their Child Support Obligations?

Fathers are likely to pay their child support on time when presumptive child support guidelines are used flexibly in response to their specific concerns. Data from 297 court cases assigned to a child support enforcement services agency in New Hampshire were used to determine whether or not the manner in which these guidelines were applied (rigid or flexible) at the time of court action had an effect on fathers' subsequent compliance with their court-ordered child support obligations. An OLS regression found the flexible use of these guidelines to increase compliance. With respect to controls, father only had attorney, father's employment, and income withholding all increased compliance. Implications for family policy advocates are discussed.

Child Support Obligations and Low‐Income Fathers

Using the 1994–1998 waves of the Current Population Survey—Child Support Supplement (N =5,387), the aims of this study are to document child support obligation rates of nonresident fathers, to examine the effect of the obligation rate on child support compliance, and to calculate the trade‐off between fathers’ financial responsibility and children's well‐being, paying particular attention to low‐income fathers. The results indicate that low‐income fathers have high child support obligation rates, which significantly reduce their child support compliance. Although lowering the obligation rate for these fathers may improve their compliance, it does not fully offset the lowered obligation amounts and leads to a 30% net payment loss for welfare mothers and a 43% loss for nonwelfare mothers. Policy implications are discussed.

TURNING OFFENDERS INTO RESPONSIBLE PARENTS AND CHILD SUPPORT PAYERS*

This article describes four demonstration projects that strive to promote responsible behavior with respect to parenting, child support payment, and employment among incarcerated and paroled parents with child support obligations. These projects, conducted in Colorado, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Texas, with support from the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement and evaluated by the Center for Policy Research, led to a number of common outcomes and lessons. The projects revealed that inmates want help with child support, parenting, and employment and that prisons can be effective settings in which to conduct such interventions. Family reintegration programs were popular with inmates and may have helped to avoid the rupture of parent–child relationships commonly associated with incarceration. Although employment is the key to child support payment following release, rates of postrelease employment and earnings at all project sites were low and the employment programs were of limited utility in helping released offenders find jobs. Agencies dealing with child support, employment, and criminal justice need to adopt more effective policies with incarcerated parents including transitional job programs that guarantee immediate, subsidized employment upon release, child support guidelines that adjust for low earnings, and better training and education opportunities during incarceration.

Recent Developments: Indiana Family Law

distinction, 1979, St. Mary’s University School of Law, San Antonio Texas. ** Associate, Ruppert & Schaefer, P.C. A.S. 2000, Indiana University; B.S., with distinction, 2002, Indiana University; J.D., Family Law Concentration, Valparaiso University School of Law, Valparaiso, Indiana. The authors also wish to acknowledge Jake McKinney for his assistance in compiling the appellate decisions used in this Survey. 1. Ten articles of Title 31 of the Indiana Code are specifically titled family law. IND. CODE §§ 31-11 to -20 (2004). These articles cover marriage, domestic relations courts, the parent-child relationship, establishment of paternity, dissolution of marriage and legal separation, support of children and other dependents, custody and visitation rights, the Uniform Interstate Family Support Act, adoption and human reproduction. Title 31 also contains an article of general provisions as well as an article consisting of 149 sections of definitions pertaining to both family and juvenile law. An additional eleven articles of Title 31 are specifically referred to as “juvenile law.” See IND. CODE § 31-9-2-72 (2004) (“‘Juvenile law’ refers to [Indiana Code section] 31-30 to 31-40.”). Also, every legal proceeding in Indiana between parents involving child support or visitation with their children is governed by the Indiana Supreme Court’s Child Support Rules and Guidelines and Parenting Time Guidelines. Throughout an additional fifteen other titles of the Indiana Code are provisions governing criminal offenses against children and the family, children’s protection services, marriage and family therapists, and trust and fiduciaries. Federal legislation involving taxation, bankruptcy and retirement benefits can be a consideration in virtually any property settlement. Other federal legislation impacts Native American adoptions, parental kidnapping and state enforcement of child support obligations. RECENT DEVELOPMENTS: INDIANA FAMILY LAW

VISITATION AND CHILD SUPPORT GUIDELINES

Fabricius and Braver argue that nonresident fathers incur appreciable visitation expenses and that their child support obligations should be reduced accordingly. To assess whether fathers incur “appreciable” expenses requires data from mothers and fathers on expenditures in dollar terms rather than data from college students on items kept in the nonresident father's house. The Fabricius and Braver data also overstate the degree to which all divorced fathers do anything for their children. Representative data indicate that father visitation declines substantially over time. Father's postdivorce, post–child support standard of living remains twice that of mothers and children. The cliff model—making adjustments for visitation only in the rare cases of very high shared physical custody—is sensible policy.

First Impressions of Miglin in the Supreme Court of Canada

Contracting out of spousal support - a review of the Supreme Court of Canada's perspective and its impact on separation agreements, marriage contracts and cohabitation agreements that purport to waive or limit statutory spousal support obligations.

Unwilling Fathers and Abortion: Terminating Men's Child Support Obligations?

There is broad agreement across the western industrialised world that men who father children outside of marriage share in an obligation to support their offspring financially. Against this consensus, some men's groups have claimed that if women are accorded control over the decision to continue or to terminate a pregnancy then it is unfair to hold genetic fathers financially liable for child support. This paper assesses the merits of this claim from a feminist perspective. Having considered a number of arguments, it suggests that the currently accepted grounding of child support liability (in voluntary creation of need) provides little scope for refuting the men's groups' argument. The paper then moves on to argue that voluntary creation of need is, however, inadequate as a basis for child support liability, and that the current analysis offers compelling grounds for preferring a collective model of support obligations.

Strategic Bargaining Over Child Support and Visitation

When parents divorce, child support and visitation must be determined. The 1988 Family Support Act requires all states to have child support guidelines for courts to use in determining child support obligations. However, many divorcing couples arrive at agreements without court intervention, or they simply fail to enforce the court decision ex post. Given that the guidelines provide a starting point for negotiations, couples may be able to find self-negotiated, Pareto-improving solutions. In this paper we model the bargaining process that divorcing couples engage in when coming to agreements on visitation and child support. The model suggests that individuals may arrive at agreements that are Pareto improvements for both parents but that the children's welfare may decline as a result of these self-negotiated settlements. Data from the Stanford Child Custody Study show that the changes made in child support and visitation agreements are consistent with our model in only 30 percent of the cases. Therefore, we consider alternative specifications of the model and show that both significant costs of enforcing the original agreement and alternative assumptions on parental preferences can explain these empirical results.

Should Visitation Denial Affect the Obligation to Pay Support?

When parents do not live together, the relationship between their children and the parent with whom they do not primarily live is often difficult to establish or maintain. In some cases those difficulties may be exacerbated by the custodial parent's resistence to regular contact and visitation with the other parent, expressed through conduct that violates the judicial decree setting forth the custody terms. In other cases substantial impairment in the noncustodial parent's relationship with the child may unavoidably result from custodial-parent conduct that is both lawful and reasonable, such as justified relocation with a young child to a distant location to which the other parent cannot follow. At one time the support obligor might have stopped making payments in either situation, effectively undermining the formal legal rule requiring him to pay, but improvements in the enforcement of child support obligations increasingly exclude that form of self-help. Where impairment in the parent-child relationship arises from noncompliance with the visitation provisions of the custody decree, a possible response is its improved enforcement, but inherent difficulties in the available enforcement tools suggest that this response will always leave some cases unresolved. Nor will enforcement address the question in the relocation context. Renewed attention is therefore appropriate to the question of whether formal relief from the child support obligation should be allowed in such cases. The legal doctrine is confused. On one hand the right of access and the obligation of support are both regarded as fundamental attributes of parental status, and typically arise and end together in the context of legal rules establishing or terminating parental status. On the other hand, in many states the law makes clear that one parent's obligation to pay support is not dependent upon the other parent's cooperation in allowing access to the child. The rule that the obligation to pay support and the obligation to permit access are not interdependent is also often surprising to the parents themselves, because it appears to violate the social norm of reciprocity. It survives in the law largely for two reasons, one procedural and one substantive. As a procedural matter parties are supposed to seek modification of an outstanding judicial decree they believe no longer appropriate, rather than ignore it and raise their substantive concerns only later as a defense to an action against them for noncompliance. As a substantive matter, courts assume that the continued payment of child support obligations are essential to the child's welfare, and they are therefore disinclined to reduce or end them as a remedy even if convinced of the custodial parent's improper behavior. This article concludes that while both these procedural and substantive reasons are weighty, they do not, or need not, apply to the full range of cases in which the law denies reductions in the support obligation sought on visitation-denial grounds. The article also considers other reasons for enforcing support, and finds these additional reasons are also often inapplicable to the visitation-denial cases considered here. Carefully distinguishing among cases according to both the severity of the visitation denial, as well as the procedural posture, the article suggests changes in the legal rules that would in many cases satisfy the procedural objection. It also suggests two categories of cases in which the substantive objection will often be of limited relevance: cases involving the enforcement of arrearages where the children are near or beyond the age of majority, and cases in which the support obligee has remarried. It therefore concludes that the increasingly effective enforcement of the support obligation ought to be accompanied by recognition of a visitation-denial ground for reducing, suspending, or terminating it, in select cases. This working paper is a draft of a chapter that will appear in The Law and Economics of Child Support Payments, edited by William Comanor, and expected to appear during 2003.

Context and Inclusivity in Canada's Evolving Definition of the Family

Historically, the legal definition of the was based on heterosexual marriage and links to biological children. Prompted by changing social values and the Charter of Rights, Canadian legislatures and courts have dramatically extended the range of relationships having familial rights and obligations. Canada recognizes the legal status of psychological parents, support rights for adult children and filial support obligations. At present, the greatest controversies concern the inclusion of non-traditional spousal relationships within the concept of the family, as unmarried cohabitants and same sex-partners in long term relationships have gained many of the rights and obligations of marriage. The Law Commission of Canada recommends legal recognition of a broader range of non-conjugal personal adult Arguments are also being made for legal recognition of polygamous marriage. While there are legal contexts for which an extension of familial rights to non-conjugal close personal relationships is appropriate, for purposes of family law, conjugality should remain a central concept. Adults living in relationships that do not involve the expectations and interdependencies of conjugal (or spousal) relationships should not have obligations that continue after they have ceased to reside together. Relationships where the adults actually have responsibility for the care of children should generally be protected, but there are strong arguments for not giving legal sanction to polygamous relationships.