Family Formation:
Child Support
Fatherhood
Teen Parents
[ Publications |
Ongoing Work |
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Giving Noncustodial Parents
Options: Employment and Child Support Outcomes of the SHARE Program,
October 2003.
The Support Has A Rewarding Effect (SHARE)
initiative operated with Welfare-to-Work (WtW) grant support in three counties
in the state of Washington. SHARE involved collaboration among the
welfare and workforce investment systems, child support enforcement agency,
and employment and training providers. The SHARE approach emphasized
close monitoring of child support compliance and strove to limit the burden
of child support obligations on the NCPs, so these did not become a disincentive
to work. Specifically, SHARE offered three options to noncustodial
parents (NCP) whose minor, dependent children were receiving Temporary Assistance
for Needy Families (TANF) and who were in arrears on their support obligations:
(1) start paying support, (2) enroll in a WtW program, or (3) face possible
incarceration. The main objective of this study was to examine the employment,
earnings, and child support outcomes for targeted NCPs.
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State Practices in Medical Child Support
Cross-Program Coordination, June 2003.
This study describes policies and practices in Connecticut, Minnesota, and
Texas designed to coordinate the child support enforcement program, Medicaid,
and SCHIP in order to secure and sustain appropriate health care coverage
for child support-eligible children. Based on the findings from site visits
to the three states, the report documents both successes in cross-program
coordination as well as challenges to effective coordination. Prepared by
Lynne Fender and Jen Bernstein of the Urban Institute.
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From Prisons to Home: The Effect of
Incarceration on Children, Families, and Low-Income Communities,
2003.
A majority of individuals in prison are parents, and the impact appears to
be concentrated in poor, minority, urban communities. In the last decade
alone, the number of children with a parent in prison has increased 50 percent,
from one million to a million and a half. However, it is not only parental
imprisonment that has an impact on children and families. The Department
of Justice estimates that more than seven million children have at least
one parent under criminal justice system supervision--in prison or in jail,
or on probation or parole. This represents 10 percent of all children in
the United States under age 18. In January of 2002, the ASPE in conjunction
with the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, held
a two-day conference exploring issues related to the effects of parental
incarceration on children, families and low-income communities. In preparation
for that conference, 11 papers and presentations were commissioned and a
State Symposium was held. The State Symposium brought together the collaborating
agency heads and other key stakeholders from five states to obtain information
on both the development and implementation phases of state efforts. Key areas
explored were resource needs, identifying barriers, partnership building,
and implementation lessons. In addition to the commissioned papers available
here, a conference synthesis report will be released in 2004.
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The Long-Term Effects of the Minnesota
Family Investment Program on Marriage and Divorce Among Two-Parent
Families, June 2003.
In 1994, Minnesota began testing a major welfare reform initiative that
emphasized financial incentives for work, a participation requirement for
long-term recipients, and the simplification of rules and procedures for
receiving public assistance. MDRC conducted an in-depth evaluation of the
Minnesota Family Investment Program’s effectiveness and impact on various
populations served. One of the striking findings of that evaluation was that
a survey sample of two-parent recipient families assigned to MFIP were 19.1
percentage points, or 40 percent, more likely to be married at the three-year
follow-up point than two-parent recipient families assigned to AFDC. ASPE
funded further MDRC work to examine the effects on divorce and marriage outcomes
over a seven-year follow-up period to determine if these effects on marriage
held up over time and to examine effects for subgroups. This report, by Lisa
Gennetian, MDRC, presents the results of this further analysis and indicate
that the pilot MFIP program that began in 1994 continued to have effects
on rates of divorce for two-parent families seven years after they entered
the study. The findings represent some of the best evidence to date about
the potential for welfare policies to affect marital stability among two-parent
families.
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Effects of Marriage on Family
Economic Well-Being web site.
This four-paper series examines the economic returns to marriage and includes
a summary of the grant project.
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Child Support and TANF Interaction:
Literature Review, April 2003.
This literature review summarizes current research on the interaction between
TANF and child support, including the child support receipt by current and
former TANF recipients, the effect of child support receipt on TANF exit
and reentry, and reductions in poverty associated with child support receipt.
It also reviews the limited research on how specific welfare policies affect
child support receipt. This literature review will inform a secondary analysis
of national survey data and state administrative data to determine how child
support interacts with TANF exit or reentry, to be released next year.
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State Experience and Perspectives
on Reducing Out-of-Wedlock Births, February 2003.
This report examines state efforts to reduce nonmarital births since the
passage of PRWORA. In addition to synthesizing existing surveys of related
state efforts, the study also includes findings from a series detailed interviews
with a sample of nine states. These interviews focused on how states' efforts
to reduce nonmarital births had changed since passage of PRWORA, the extent
to which efforts focused on teens and/or adults, challenges or barriers states
encountered, changes in roles of state agencies and community-based
organizations, changes in funding sources, and the potential role of the
Bonus to Reward Decrease in Illegitimacy — a provision in TANF.
Prepared by Mark W. Nowak, Michael E. Fishman, and Mary E. Farrell of Lewin.
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Health Care Coverage Among Child
Support-Eligible Children, December 2002.
This report analyzes data from the 1999 National Survey of America’s
Families (NSAF) to determine the health care coverage status of child
support-eligible children who live with their mothers and estimates their
eligibility for Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program
(SCHIP). Prepared by Laudan Y. Aron, Urban Institute.
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State Policies to Promote Marriage, Final
Report, September 2002.
This report inventories state policies directly focused on promoting or
supporting marriage. Using secondary data sources, the Lewin Group
(under contract with HHS) compiled information across states documenting
the presence of marriage-related activities in a variety of areas such as
campaigns and commissions; divorce laws and procedures; marriage and relationship
preparation and education; tax and transfer policies; marriage support and
promotion programs. Preliminary Report, March
2002.
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Characteristics of Families
Using Title IV-D Services in 1997, May 2002.
This report by Matthew Lyon, formerly of HSP, identifies the characteristics
of custodial parent families using the services of the child support enforcement
system. It uses matched data from the March 1998 Current Population
Survey and the April 1998 Child Support Supplement and also provides information
on participation in welfare and other government programs. An earlier report,
Characteristics
of Families Using Title IV-D Services in 1995, used matched
data from the March 1996 CPS and the April 1996 Child Support Supplement.
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Serving Noncustodial
Parents: A Descriptive Study of Welfare-to-Work Programs, December
2000.
The Department of Labor’s Welfare-to-Work (WtW) grants represent a new
and valuable source of funding for local work-focused services to noncustodial
parents (NCPs). ASPE, working with the Department of Labor, sponsored
a study of 11 selected WtW grantees with an NCP focus to identify how some
WtW grantees have designed and implemented programs that address the employment
and other service needs of NCPs. The report, prepared by Karin Martinson
and John Trutko (Urban Institute) and Debra Strong (Mathematica Policy Research),
documents a variety of recruitment strategies and service approaches being
implemented and highlights key issues that must be address to serve this
population.
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21 Million Children’s
Health: Our Shared Responsibility. The Medical Child
Support Working Group’s Report to Congress, June 2000.
In the Child Support Performance and Incentive Act of 1998, Congress directed
the establishment of the Medical Support Working Group by the Secretaries
of HHS and Labor. The charge of the Working Group was to identify the
impediments to the effective enforcement of medical child support and recommend
solutions to those impediments. The Working Group’s 76 recommendations
are presented in this report to Congress. Besides the
full report, the
Executive
Summary and
list of the
recommendations with references to the pages where they are discussed
are available online.
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Nonresident Fathers:
To What Extent Do They Have Access to Employment-Based Health Care
Coverage, June 2000.
The report contains the findings presented to the Medical Support Working
Group during the course of their deliberations. These findings, based
on analysis of the Current Population Survey Child Support Supplement and
the Survey of Income and Program Participation, provided a fact-based analytical
framework for the Working Group activities. Prepared by Laura Wheaton
of the Urban Institute.
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Income and Demographic Characteristics of
Nonresident Fathers in 1993, June 2000.
During the past few years, research has shown that nonresident fathers, as
a whole, can afford to pay more child support, but that a minority of them
are poor and have limited ability to pay child support. This report
updates and improves on earlier analyses and provides more information on
the circumstances of low-income fathers. The findings confirm that
strengthening child support enforcement is warranted, but that poor fathers
may need a different approach, one building on their capacity to pay child
support. Prepared by Elaine Sorensen and Laura Wheaton of the Urban
Institute.
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HHS Fatherhood Initiative
web site
The web site of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) devoted
to fatherhood current activities, issues, and research.
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Teenage Parent Demonstration
and Evaluation web site
A large-scale, multi-site, multi-year demonstration and evaluation of ways
to help teenage parents become self-sufficient.
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