Understanding Child Support Trends: Economic, Demographic, and Political Contributions

We use data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to examine trends in child support payments over the past thirty years and to assess five different explanations for these trends: inflation, the shift to unilateral divorce, changes in marital status composition, changes in men's and women's earnings, and ineffective child support laws. We find that during the 1970s and early 1980s, three factors high inflation, increase in non-marital childbearing, and shifts to unilateral divorse--exerted downward pressure on child support payments. Throughout this time period, child support policies were weak, and average real payments declined sharply. Our findings indicate that two child support policies legislative guidelines for awards and universal wage withholding--are important for insuring child support payments. Finally, our analyses suggest that further gains in child support payments will rest with our ability to collect child support for children born to unwed parents. These children are the fastest growing group of children in the US, and they are the least likely to receive child support. To date, child support policies have been ineffective in assuring child support for never married mothers.

How Hungry is the Selfish Gene?

We examine resource allocation in step-households, in the United States and South Africa, to test whether child investments vary according to economic and genetic bonds between parent and child. We used 18 years of data from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, and compare food expenditure by family type, holding constant household size, age composition and income. We find that in those households in which a child is raised by an adoptive, step or foster mother, less is spent on food. We cannot reject the hypothesis that the effect of replacing a biological child with a non- biological child is the same, whether the non-biological child is an adoptive, step or foster child of the mother. In South Africa, where we can disaggregate food consumption more finely, we find that when a child's biological mother is the head or spouse of the head of household, the household spends significantly more on food, in particular on milk and fruit and vegetables, and significantly less on tobacco and alcohol. The genetic tie to the child, and not any anticipated future economic tie, appears to be the tie that binds.