Child Support Enforcement
and Father Involvement for Children
in Never-Married Mother Families
CHIEN-CHUNG HUANG
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
This paper uses the 1988-1998 waves of the Current Population
Survey—Child Support Supplement to track trends in father
involvement for children in never-married families and to examine
whether state child support enforcement affects their levels of
involvement. Father involvement is measured by child support
payments and visitation. The results indicate that father involvement for children in never-married mother families increased substantially over the 10-year period investigated and that effective
child support enforcement significantly increased not only child
support payment but also visitation for children in never-married
mother families.
Keywords: child support enforcement, father involvement
T
he number of children in never-married mother families in the United States has
increased dramatically over the past three decades. About 700,000 children (or one
percent of total children) lived in never-married mother families in 1970. The number increased to 1.8 million in 1980, 4.9 million in 1990, and 8.1 million (11 percent
of total children) in 2001 (U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and
Means, 2004).
Empirical studies provide clear evidence that children in these families are more
likely to have poor development, lower educational achievement, and more behavior
problems than those in two-parent families (Duncan & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Krein &
The author would like to thank Rocky Citro and Shanna Goldstein for their research assistance.
Correspondence should be addressed to Chien-Chung Huang, School of Social Work, Rutgers, the State
University of New Jersey, 536 George Street, New Brunswick, NJ 08901. Electronic mail: huangc@
rci.rutgers.edu.
Fathering, Vol. 4, No. 1, Winter 2006, 97-111.
© 2006 by the Men’s Studies Press, LLC. All rights reserved.
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HUANG
Beller, 1988; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994). The absence of the father is often
identified as an important contributor to these negative outcomes. Although father
involvement has been the focus of increasing attention in recent years (Day & Lamb,
2003; Garfinkel, McLanahan, Meyer, & Seltzer, 1998; Lamb, 2004; TamisLemonda & Cabrera, 2002), research has paid insufficient attention to changes in
father involvement for children in never-married mother families over time. The
tremendous growth of children in never-married mother families in the past few
decades calls for a pressing effort to understand the dynamics in these families.
Thus, the first aim of this paper is to track trends in father involvement for children
in never-married families over the 1988 to 1998 period.
In response to the increase in single-mother families, state and federal governments have taken a number of steps to strengthen the child support enforcement system to prevent nonresident fathers from financially abandoning their children
(Garfinkel, Meyer, & McLanahan, 1998; Lerman & Sorenson, 2003). In 1975, Congress created the Child Support Enforcement (CSE) Program, which established
state Offices of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) and authorized federal matching funds for states to assist with locating nonresident parents, establishing paternity,
establishing child support orders, and obtaining child support payments. From 1981
through 1999 (with the exception of 1983, 1985, and 1991), Congress further passed
new laws every year to strengthen child support. The 1984, 1988, and 1996 bills
were the most important. The 1984 Child Support Amendments required states to
develop legislative guidelines to be used in determining child support awards and to
withhold child support obligations from the paychecks of delinquent fathers. The
Family Support Act of 1988 required automatic withholding of child support obligations from the outset for all IV-D cases (i.e., public assistance recipients or custodial
parents who applied for child support services under title IV-D of the Social Security Act) as of 1990 and for all child support cases as of 1994. Many states, however,
failed to implement withholding for non-IV-D cases because they did not have the
bureaucratic capacity to administer universal withholding of payments. The Personal
Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA)
required states to expand enforcement mechanisms. It insisted that all states develop
the bureaucratic capacity to monitor all child support payments and to administer
universal withholding. PRWORA also established a national directory of new hires
that can be used to match with state directories and to facilitate interstate enforcement of child support obligations. As a result of the legislation, both federal and
state governments have devoted considerable resources to child support enforcement, and real spending on enforcement increased from $0.8 billion to $5.2 billion
between 1978 and 2002 (in 2002 dollars).
The results of efforts to strength child support enforcement have been striking.
For example, paternity establishment rates have increased from 23 percent in the
early 1980s to more than 50 percent in the late 1990s (Garfinkel et al., 2003;
Nichols-Casebolt & Garfinkel, 1991), and the proportion of never-married mothers
with a child support award has grown from 5 percent to more than 20 percent during
this same period (Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Huang, Garfinkel, & Waldfogel,
2004). Although the improvement has been substantial over past decades, enormous
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CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
variation of child support outcomes was observed across states (Garfinkel et al.,
1998; Huang, Garfinkel, & Waldfogel, 2004). While the federal government began
strengthening child support enforcement in the early 1980s, some states were
already relatively effective in terms of establishing paternity, locating nonresident
fathers, and collecting payments. Most states, however, were doing very little. Since
the early 1980s, nearly all states have improved their records, but some states
improved dramatically and others hardly at all (Garfinkel et al., 1998). Strict child
support legislation and high child support expenditures have been found to be associated with high child support collection (Beller & Graham, 1993; Case, Lin, &
McLanahan, 2003; Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Garfinkel & Robins, 1994;
Sorensen & Hill, 2004). As is often the case with social policy research, variability
in state programs offers researchers an excellent opportunity to explore the impact of
state policy. As the overall trend to require financial responsibility of nonresident
fathers continues, it is likely to affect their involvement in their children’s lives. The
second aim of this paper is to examine whether state child support enforcement
affects the degree of father involvement.
LEVELS OF FATHER INVOLVEMENT OVER TIME
Empirical studies provide evidence that the level of father involvement for both married and divorced fathers has increased over time (Bianchi, 2000; Huang, Han, &
Garfinkel, 2003; Pleck, 1997; Pleck & Masciadrelli, 2004; Sandberg & Hofferth,
2001). The average amount of time that two-parent family fathers were engaged
with and accessible to their three- to 12-year-old children was 18.5 hours per week
in 1981. By 1997, it increased by 23 percent to 22.7 hours. The increase of father
involvement was even stronger in families with employed mothers, improving from
17.0 to 22.9 hours (Sandberg & Hofferth, 2001). Divorced fathers stay involved in
their children’s lives by sharing legal custody with the mother of their children, paying child support, and spending time with their children. For example, before 1984,
the percentage of divorced parents who chose joint legal custody was just 21 percent
but averaged 34 percent during the 1993 to 1998 period. Fathers with joint custody
spent 80 days with their children annually in 1991 and 86 days in 1997, approximately twice as many days as fathers without joint custody (Huang, Han, &
Garfinkel, 2003).
For children in never-married mother families, there is evidence that nonresident
fathers may become more involved over time (Carlson, McLanahan, & BrooksGunn, 2005; Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Huang, Garfinkel, & Waldfogel, 2004;
Lerman & Sorenson, 2000; McLanahan & Sandefur, 1994; Mincy, Garfinkel, &
Nepomnyaschy, 2005). Only one out of 20 children in never-married mother families
received child support payments from their fathers in 1980, but one in five children
received them in 1999 (Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Huang, Garfinkel, & Waldfogel, 2004). Although there are no studies on changes in father-child contact for children in never-married mother families over time, studies find that about one-third of
children saw their fathers at least once a month but another third of children had no
contact at all with their fathers (Lerman & Sorenson, 2000; Mott, 1990; McLanahan
& Sandefur; Seltzer, 1991). Recent studies also find that father involvement tends to
99
HUANG
be high in the initial years (i.e., infancy and toddlerhood; see Carlson, McLanahan, &
Brooks-Gunn, 2005; Mincy, Garfinkel, & Nepomnyaschy, 2005). For example, using
the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Survey, Mincy, Garfinkel, & Nepomnyaschy (2005) found that 70% of nonresident fathers saw their one-year-old children in the past month and 67% of them paid support since the child was born.
Previous studies also find that the level of father involvement is associated with
parents’ socioeconomic characteristics and residential areas. Minority nonresident
fathers, particularly black fathers, were less likely to pay child support but more
likely to have contact with their children (Carlson, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn,
2005; Lerman & Sorenson, 2000; Yeung et al., 2001; Sorensen & Hill, 2004). Parents with high incomes and levels of education tend to be more involved than their
counterparts (Yeung et al., 2001; Carlson & McLanahan, 2005). Older fathers were
more likely to get involved with their children than young fathers (Lerman & Sorenson, 2000; Carlson, McLanahan, & Brooks-Gunn). Custodial mothers with more
children received more child support from nonresident fathers while mothers who
lived in central city areas were less likely to receive child support from fathers
(Case, Lin, & McLanahan, 2003; Hanson et al., 1996).
CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT AND FATHER INVOLVEMENT
Within one economic theory, children are viewed as collective consumption goods
within marriage (Weiss & Willis, 1985). Because never-married fathers have no
control over the “goods,” they may be unwilling to fulfill their child support obligations. With strong child support enforcement, never-married fathers are more likely
to provide financial resources. To bring financial payments and emotional rewards
into balance and to monitor the allocation of child support payments, they may
demand greater control of their children (Weiss & Willis; Graham & Beller, 2002).
If so, strong child support enforcement is likely to increase the involvement of
never-married fathers. On the other hand, there are compelling reasons to expect
child support payments might lessen involvement. Child support payments reduce
the disposable income of the father (Freeman & Waldfogel, 1998; Garfinkel, 1992),
and if a father needed or preferred to make up for the lost income, he might increase
his work hours and therefore reduce the time available for other activities, including
involvement with his children.
Empirical studies have shown that nonresident fathers who live in a state with a
strong child support enforcement system are more likely to pay child support (Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Case, Lin, & McLanahan, 2003; Sorensen & Hill, 2004).
However, there is a relative lack of empirical evidence on the effects of child support enforcement on father-child contact. Evidence, largely from divorced fathers,
indicates that strong child support enforcement may increase contact (Seltzer,
McLanahan, & Hanson, 1998; Huang, Han, & Garfinkel, 2003). However, little
information is available for children in never-married mother families. Qualitative
studies show that punitive or aggressive child support enforcement may drive some
fathers to totally abandon their children, financially and otherwise (Edin, 1995;
Hamer, 1998; Waller & Plotnick, 2001).
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CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
Additionally, one limitation of previous studies on child support enforcement is
how enforcement is measured. Studies have used different variables to measure the
strength of child support enforcement, including state child support legislation, per
capita child support expenditure, paternity establishment rate, payment rate, average
payment, and collection effectiveness (Case, 1998; Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001;
Garfinkel, Heintze, & Huang, 2001; Huang, 2002; Huang, Kunz, & Garfinkel, 2002;
Garfinkel et al., 2003; Huang, Han, & Garfinkel, 2003, Sorensen & Hill, 2004). Not
surprisingly, the findings of these studies have varied greatly in level of significance
and direction of effects. This variation may have partly resulted from the difficulties
in accurately specifying child support enforcement and partly from measuring
effects through individual measures. However, it seems clear that successful child
support enforcement requires three steps: establishing a legal child support order,
determining the award amount, and collecting the payment. Moreover, effective
child support enforcement requires strict child support legislation, high government
expenditure, and strong implementation (Freeman & Waldfogel, 2001; Huang,
Garfinkel, & Waldfogel, 2004). Huang, Garfinkel, and Waldfogel’s study provides
evidence that individual child support variables may not be accurate indicators of
state child support enforcement effectiveness. An index that includes multiple
dimensions of child support enforcement is more likely to capture the strength of
state child support enforcement efforts.
METHODS
DATA
The main data used in this paper are taken from the six most recent waves of the
Current Population Survey—Child Support Supplement (CPS-CSS): 1988, 1990,
1992, 1994, 1996, and 1998. The CPS-CSS, a nationally representative dataset, collects information from custodial mothers on the involvement of nonresident fathers.
The 2000 and 2002 CPS-CSS have not been made public as of the present writing.
Information gathered from respondents includes data on child support payments and
visitation (days nonresident parent spent with the child in the previous year) as well
as detailed individual and family characteristics.
Another way to examine the issue is to use father involvement information
reported by nonresident fathers. Unfortunately, there is no nationally representative
dataset on these outcomes. Some national datasets such as the Survey of Income and
Program Participation (SIPP) contain information on child support payments as
reported by nonresident fathers, but nonresident fathers are often underrepresented,
largely due to underreporting or incarceration. If the underrepresentation problem is
not taken into account, the estimates of nonresident fathers could be seriously biased
(Garfinkel, McLanahan, & Hanson, 1998; Sorensen, 1997). The state child support
enforcement data come from Huang, Garfinkel, and Waldfogel (2004). Data
expressed in dollars were collected as nominal amounts and converted to real (constant) 1997 dollars using the consumer price index. The final sample of the present
study includes 6,487 never-married mother families.
101
HUANG
MEASURES
Father Involvement: Two variables are used to measure father involvement: child
support payments and visitation. Total annual child support payment measures the
role of economic provider and is a record of the dollar sum of child support that a
mother received in the previous year. Visitation evaluates contacts between father
and child and is measured by the number of days the father spent with the child in
the year preceding the survey.
Child Support Enforcement: A child support enforcement index that includes multiple dimensions of child support enforcement was employed (Huang, Garfinkel, &
Waldfogel, 2004). The index consists of the summative rating of standardized scores
from variables measuring the number of state child support laws, per case enforcement expenditures, and degree of implementation performance. The measurement of
state child support legislation includes eight components (values range from 0 for
states with no laws to 8 for states with laws in all eight areas) that cover steps for
establishing paternity, obtaining an award, and collecting child support payments:
(1) genetic tests, (2) paternity establishment, (3) numerical guidelines, (4) presumptive guidelines, (5) wage withholding under delinquency, (6) immediate wage withholding for a new case, (7) universal wage withholding, and (8) state income tax
refund interception. The legislation variable had a mean value of 3.7 and a standard
deviation of 3.0 over the 1980-1999 period. Per case enforcement expenditures were
calculated by each state’s child support expenditures divided by the total OCSE welfare caseloads. The variable had a mean of $326 and a standard deviation of $214
over the 1980-1999 period. The degree of implementation performance was measured by the percentage of mothers with child support payments (M = 13, SD = 9),
average child support payment (M = 235, SD = 203), and ratio of child support payments to Wisconsin child support guidelines (M = 0.07, SD = 0.06) for never-married mothers over the 1980-1999 period. The original index was created from 1980
to 1999 data and had a mean value of 0.0, a standard deviation of 0.73, and a Cronbach’s alpha of 0.92. The original index was merged with the 1988-1998 CPS-CSS
data to create the index for this paper, which has a mean of 0.11 and a standard deviation of 0.53. A score less than the mean signifies that the child support enforcement
in that state was less effective compared to other states over time. As shown in
Huang, Garfinkel, and Waldfogel’s sudy, the combined index is less likely to suffer
from the measurement and sampling errors that are likely to occur from individual
measures and is more likely to capture the strength of a state’s child support enforcement system.
Other Socioeconomic Characteristics: The socioeconomic characteristics of nevermarried mothers may be uniquely related to father involvement and are thus
included in this study. The characteristics include age, race/ethnicity, educational
attainment, number of children, and residential area (central city, metropolitan, or
rural). Nonresident fathers’ estimated incomes are included to measure economic
capacity. Since the CPS-CSS does not have information on nonresident fathers’
income, this paper adopts a method developed by Garfinkel and Oellerich (1989)
102
CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
that uses the custodial mother’s characteristics to predict father’s income. Specifically, several income equations for never-married male samples from the 1988-1998
years of the March CPS are estimated, and the coefficients from the regression
analyses are then used to predict fathers’ incomes. For each survey year, separate
regression models were estimated for white, black, and Hispanic men. A father’s
annual income is assumed as a function of his age, education, residential location,
and state environment (defined by such factors as unemployment rate and median
wage rate). The coefficients from the models are then applied to the custodial
mother’s characteristics to estimate the father’s income, assuming positive assortive
mating (for more information about income imputation, see Garfinkel, Heintze, &
Huang, 2001).
ANALYTIC METHODS
Regression analyses were performed with the father’s involvement as the dependent
variable and the state child support enforcement index and the mother’s characteristics as explanatory variables. Some unobserved state and time characteristics may
affect the estimates of the explanatory variables. For example, a state that holds a
conservative attitude on never-married motherhood might be more likely to implement stronger child support enforcement on nonresident fathers. By failing to measure this state climate, the estimates of state child support enforcement may be
biased. In order to control for these unobserved state and time characteristics, specific state and year dummies are included in the regression model. The model specification is represented by: yit = β 1 * CSEit-1 + β 2 * χ it + Si + δ t+ ε it where yit is the
outcome of the father’s involvement for subject i at time t; CSE it-1 is the state child
support enforcement index at previous year; χ is a vector of mother’s characteristics
and the estimated income of the nonresident father; S is a vector of state dummies
(constant across individuals residing in the same state); δ is a vector of year dummies (constant across individuals in the same year); β is a regression coefficient; and
ε is the cross-section time-series error component. For simplicity of interpretation,
ordinary least squares (OLS) regression is used for the analyses of child support
payments and visitation. Tobit regression was also used as an alternative test, and
the results were similar to the ones reported here.
RESULTS
DESCRIPTIVE STATISTICS
The explanatory variables are presented in Table 1. The mean age of the sample is
28 years. Approximately half of the sample is African American. About two-thirds
of the sample has at least a high school diploma. Forty-three percent of the sample
lives in a central city, and another 34 percent resides in a rural area. The average
income of nonresident fathers is approximately $14,725 (in 1997 dollars). Table 2
presents trends in father involvement and the state child support enforcement over
time. It is evident that father involvement increases substantially over the survey
period. The total annual child support payment increased from $237 in 1987 to $582
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HUANG
Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Explanatory Variables
Variables
M (SD)
Age
Race (%)
White
African American
Hispanic
Other
Education (%)
Below high school
High school
Some college
College
Number of children
Residential area (%)
City
Metropolitan statistical areas
Rural
Estimated father’s income (in $)
28.1 (7.6)
33.8
47.8
13.9
4.5
33.5
39.8
22.3
4.4
1.7 (1.0)
42.5
23.5
34.0
14,725 (7,005)
Survey year (%)
1988
1990
1992
1994
1996
1998
16.5
17.4
15.2
18.5
15.6
16.9
N
6,487
in 1997. Likewise, yearly visitation increased from 33 days to 49 days. State child
support enforcement also shows strong improvement over this period, from –0.34 to
0.55. These trends suggest that nonresident fathers have become more involved with
their children over the past 10 years, and the increases in father involvement were
accompanied by improvements in child support enforcement. The trends, however,
do not control for the effects of other variables or for the differences across states
and time and do not establish a time order or causal connection.
104
105
237 (1009)
33 (83)
-0.34 (0.31)
0.11 (0.53)
1987
430 (1213)
40 (88)
Note. N = 6487. Standard deviations are in parentheses.
Annual Child Support
Payment [$ real 1997]
Yearly Visitation Days
State Child Support
Enforcement Index
All
-0.13 (0.32)
334 (1092)
37 (91)
1989
Table 2
Trends in Father’s Involvement and State Child Support Enforcement
-0.01 (0.35)
297 (922)
35 (80)
1991
0.21 (0.40)
529 (1341)
41 (82)
1993
0.42 (0.48)
590 (1356)
47 (91)
1995
0.55 (0.59)
582 (1398)
49 (96)
1997
CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
HUANG
Table 3
Determinants of Father’s Involvement for Children in Never-Married Mother
Families
Annual Child
Support Payment
Age
White
African American
Hispanic
Other race
Below high school
High school
Some college
College
Number of children
City
Metropolitan
statistical areas
Rural
Estimated father’s
income [1000]
State child support
enforcement
Constant
R square
Coef.
Robust
S.E.
5
—-92
-87
-147
—61
113
182
32
—-
2
—46
57
68
—55
76
158
18
—-
38
81
41
45
13
6
147
-176
63
111
0.04
Yearly
Visitation Days
Robust
S.E.
p
Coef.
*
-1
—-2
-10
-5
—11
13
23
2
—-
0
—4
4
6
—4
6
11
1
—-
-2
-2
3
3
*
-1
0
*
8
60
4
8
*
*
p
***
**
*
*
*
*
***
0.03
Note. All models control for state and year effects. N = 6487.
* p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.
DETERMINANTS OF FATHER INVOLVEMENT
Table 3 presents the determinants of father involvement for children in never-married mother families. All models control for state and year effects by including specific state and year dummy variables. For child support payments, state child support
enforcement was associated with a high amount of payment. Increasing one standard
deviation (0.53) of child support enforcement improves the annual payment amount
by $78. The improvement of child support enforcement moved from -0.34 in 1987
to 0.55 in 1997, and the estimated coefficient of child support enforcement suggests
that $131 of child support payments in 1997 were due to the improvement of state
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CHILD SUPPORT ENFORCEMENT
child support enforcement over time (for regression decomposition method, see
Hanson et al. 1996 for details). That is, 38 percent of the increase in child support
payments over this period is explained by the improvement of child support enforcement. As for findings for the other variables, older mothers and mothers whose noncustodial-partners have high estimated incomes are more likely than their respective
counterparts to receive a higher amount of payment. Black mothers received lower
child support payments than white mothers.
With respect to the visitation model, child support enforcement is significantly
associated with the number of visitation days. Increasing one standard deviation of
child support enforcement increases the yearly visitation by four days. The estimated
coefficient of child support enforcement suggests that the improvement of state child
support enforcement over time increased visitation days by seven. That is, 45 percent of the increase in visitation over this period is explained by the improvement of
child support enforcement. Compared to mothers without a high school diploma,
mothers who had at least a high school education were more likely to have high
rates of child visitation from nonresident fathers. Older mothers and Hispanic mothers were less likely than their respective counterparts to have high child visitation
days from nonresident fathers.
In short, state child support enforcement is associated with positive outcomes
for father involvement. Mothers who live in states with strong child support enforcement are more likely to receive high child support payments and to have more child
visitation days from fathers than other mothers.
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Utilizing the 1988-1998 waves of CPS-CSS, this paper tracks the trends in levels of
father involvement for children in never-married mother families and empirically
examines the effects of state child support enforcement on the levels of involvement.
The measures of father involvement included variables to assess the role of economic
provider—child support payments and the contact between father and child. Both
child support payments and visitation increased substantially over the 1987-1997
period. The yearly child support payment increased from $237 in 1987 to $582 in
1997, and the annual visitation days increased from 33 to 49 over the same period.
The results from the regression analyses find that child support enforcement
increases the probability of father involvement. These findings suggest that 38 percent of the increase in child support payments and about 45 percent of the increase
in visitation days over this period are explained by the improvement in state child
support enforcement. The results suggest that child support enforcement not only
increases the role of economic provider of nonresident fathers but also substantially
increases their contacts. More detailed analyses are needed to evaluate how nonresident fathers actually spend this increased time with their children and how it affects
a variety of their later outcomes.
The results should be interpreted in the context of two limitations. First, the
information on child support payments and visitation was reported by mothers and
may be subject to reporting bias. For example, studies have found that custodial
mothers tend to report less father involvement than nonresident fathers do (Braver,
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HUANG
Fitzpatrick, & Bay, 1991; Braver et al., 1991; Smock & Manning, 1997; Braver &
O’Connell, 1998; Lerman & Sorenson, 2000). To the extent that these subjective
aspects share the same unmeasured variance, the estimates may be biased. Second,
the analyses show associations between state child support enforcement and father
involvement but do not illuminate the mechanisms through which the associations
derive and operate. Indeed, the results should not be interpreted as showing causal
connections between the predictors and involvement. Although this study controls for
state and year effects, there may be other unobserved variables, such as a state’s attitude toward fatherhood, which may not be totally captured by state and year effects
and could be driving the associations. Despite these limitations, this paper provides
evidence that strong child support enforcement may have impacts on father involvement for children in never-married mother families. To date, however, we know very
little about nonresident fathers’ involvement in their families’ lives, how the levels
and quality of involvement may affect child well-being (Furstenberg & Harris, 1993;
Jaffee, Moffitt, Caspi, & Taylor, 2003), and how public policies impact their relationships and outcomes. Future research should examine these issues.
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