Child support enforcement and father involvement for children in never-married mother families.

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

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The 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 & 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 lather 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 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, & Brooks-Gunn, 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 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, fnancially and otherwise (Edin, 1995; Hamer, 1998; Waller & Plotnick, 2001).

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.

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 never-married 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) 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: [y.sub.it] = [[beta].sub.1] * [CSE.sub.it-1] + [[beta].sub.2] * [[chi].sub.it] + [S.sub.i] + [[delta].sub.t]+ [[epsilon].sub.it] where [y.sub.it] t is the outcome of the father's involvement for subject i at time t; [CSE.sub.it-1] is the state child support enforcement index at previous year; [chi] 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); [delta] is a vector of year dummies (constant across individuals in the same year); [beta] is a regression coefficient; and e 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 I. 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 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.

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 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, 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.

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.

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CHIEN-CHUNG HUANG

Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey

Table 1
Descriptive Statistics of Explanatory Variables

Variables                              M (SD)

Age                                  28.1 (7.6)
Race (%)
  White                                 33.8
  African American                      47.8
  Hispanic                              13.9
  Other                                  4.5
Education (%)
  Below high school                     33.5
  High school                           39.8
  Some college                          22.3
  College                                4.4
Number of children                   1.7 (1.0)
Residential area (%)
  City                                  42.5
  Metropolitan statistical areas        23.5
  Rural                                 34.0
Estimated father's income (in $)   14,725 (7,005)
Survey year (%)
  1988                                  16.5
  1990                                  17.4
  1992                                  15.2
  1994                                  18.5
  1996                                  15.6
  1998                                  16.9
N                                      6,487

Table 2
Trends in Father's Involvement and State Child Support Enforcement

                             All           1987          1989
Annual Child Support
  Payment [$ real 1997]   430 (1213)    237 (1009)    334 (1092)
Yearly Visitation Days     40 (88)       33 (83)       37 (91)
State Child Support
  Enforcement Index      0.11 (0.53)   -0.34 (0.31)  -0.13 (0.32)

                             1991          1993          1995
Annual Child Support
  Payment [$ real 1997]   297 (922)     529 (1341)    590 (1356)
Yearly Visitation Days     35 (80)       41 (82)       47 (91)
State Child Support
  Enforcement Index      -0.01 (0.35)  0.21 (0.40)   0.42 (0.48)

                             1997
Annual Child Support
  Payment [$ real 1997]   582 (1398)
Yearly Visitation Days     49 (96)
State Child Support
  Enforcement Index      0.55 (0.59)

Note. N = 6487. Standard deviations are in parentheses.

Table 3
Determinants of Father's Involvement for Children in Never-Married
Mother Families

                       Annual Child              Yearly
                      Support Payment        Visitation Days

                                Robust               Robust
                      Coef.      S.E.    p   Coef.    S.E.    p

Age                      5        2      *    -1        0     ***
White                   --       --           --       --
African American       -92       46      *    -2        4
Hispanic               -87       57          -10        4     **
Other race            -147       68      *    -5        6
Below high school       --       --           --       --
High school             61       55           11        4     *
Some college           113       76           13        6     *
College                182      158           23       11     *
Number of children      32       18            2        1
City                    --       --           --       --
Metropolitan
statistical areas       38       41           -2        3
Rural                   81       45           -2        3
Estimated father's
income [1000]           13        6      *    -1        0
State child support
enforcement            147       63      *     8        4     *
Constant              -176      111           60        8     ***
R square                 0.04     0.03

Note. All models control for state and year effects. N= 6487.

* p < .05. ** p < .01. *** p < .001.