Single Mothers and Their Child-Support Receipt: How Well Is Child-Support Enforcement Doing?

2004/01/01 by Elaine Sorensen, Ariel Hill · 2 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Business #Child support #Developmental psychology #Enforcement #Family Dynamics and Relationships #Political science #Psychology #Receipt #Social psychology #Social support

paper · doi:10.2307/3559008

openalex publication_date 2004/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/25

Abstract

An increasingly large number of children are being raised by single parents. Child-support enforcement is aimed at mitigating the economic loss that these children face as a result of living with just one parent. Prior research has shown that early child-support reforms have succeeded in increasing child support, but recent reforms have not been examined and the critical role of welfare participation has been overlooked. Using 25 years of data from the March Current Population Survey augmented by child-support policies, this paper updates and expands our understanding of the impact of child-support enforcement on single mothers.

Cited by

• Child support and father-child contact: Testing reciprocal pathways
• Trends in child support receipt and regularity in the United States, 1996–2018

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