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Journal Issue: Welfare to Work Volume 7 Number 1 Spring 1997

The Partners of Welfare Mothers: Potential Earnings and Child Support
Authors: Michael J. Brien Robert J. Willis

Endnotes

  1. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Household and family characteristics: 1991. Current Population Reports, P-20, no. 458. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992; see also, Shiono, P., and Quinn, L. Epidemiology of divorce. The Future of Children (Spring 1994) 4,1:15–28.
  2. DaVanzo, J., and Rahman, M.O. American families: Trends and correlates. Population Index (Fall 1993) 59,3:350–86.
  3. Akerlof, G.A., Yellen, J.L., and Katz, M.L. An analysis of out-of-wedlock childbearing in the United States. Unpublished paper, 1994.
  4. Lerman, R.I. Policy watch: Child support policies. Journal of Economic Perspectives (1993) 7,1:171–83.
  5. Garfinkel, I., Melli, M., and Robertson, J. Child support orders: A perspective on reform. The Future of Children (Spring 1994) 4,1:84–100.
  6. U.S. Bureau of the Census. Child support and alimony: 1989. Current Population Reports, P-60, no. 173. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1991.
  7. Beller, A.H., and Graham, J.W. Small change: The economics of child support. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1993.
  8. Barnow, B. Paternity establishment among never-married mothers: Estimated from the 1986 Current Population Survey, Alimony and Child Support Supplement. Special Report 56B. Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, 1986.
  9. Although paternity is not legally established in a large number of out-of-wedlock births to AFDC-eligible mothers, studies suggest that many fathers voluntarily admit paternity when contacted by child support authorities. See Meyer, D.R. Paternity and public policy. Focus (1992) 14,2:1–11.
  10. Nichols-Casebolt, A., and Garfinkel, I. Trends in paternity adjudications and child support awards. Social Science Quarterly (1991) 72,1:83–97.
  11. Sonenstein, F.L., Holcomb, P.A, and Seefeldt, K.S. Promising approaches to improving paternity establishment rates at the local level. Unpublished paper, 1994.
  12. Danziger, S.K., and Nichols-Casebolt, A. Child support in paternity cases. Social Service Review (September 1990) 64,3:458–74.
  13. Wattenberg, E. Establishing paternity for nonmarital children: Do policy and practice discourage adjudication? Public Welfare (1987) 45,3:9–13,48.
  14. A related topic, on which limited data are available, is the amount of the transfer payment that actually goes to benefit the child. See Weiss, Y., and Willis, R.J. Children as collective goods and divorce settlements. Journal of Labor Economics (1985) 3,3:268–92; see also, Willis, R.J. A theory of out-of-wedlock childbearing. Unpublished paper, 1994.
  15. Brien, M.J., and Willis, R.J. Fathers: Costs and consequences of early childbearing for fathers, the young mothers, and their children. In Kids having kids: Economic costs and social consequences of teen pregnancy. R. Maynard, ed. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press, 1997.
  16. Marsiglio, W. Adolescent fathers in the United States: Their initial living arrangements, marital experience and educational outcomes. Family Planning Perspectives (1987) 19,6:240–51.
  17. Lerman, R.I. Employment patterns of unwed fathers and public policy. In Young unwed fathers: Changing roles and emerging policies. R.I. Lerman and T.J. Ooms, eds. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1993.
  18. Pirog-Good, M.A. The education and labor market outcomes of adolescent fathers. Discussion Paper No. 1014-93. Madison, WI: Institute for Research on Poverty, August 1993.
  19. Hardy, J.B., and Duggan, A.K. Teenage fathers and the fathers of infants of urban teenage mothers. American Journal of Public Health (1988) 78,8:919–22.
  20. Landry, D.J., and Forrest, J.D. How old are U.S. fathers? Family Planning Perspectives (1995) 27,4:159–61. These authors state that among young teenagers (ages 15 to 17), only 10% of fathers and 21% of mothers are married.
  21. Garfinkel, I., and Oellerich, D. Noncustodial fathers' ability to pay child support. Demography (1989) 26,2:219–33.
  22. Penkrot, J.L. Can AFDC parents pay child support? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management (1989) 8,1:104–10.
  23. Phillips, E., and Garfinkel, I. Income growth among nonresident fathers: Evidence from Wisconsin. Demography (1993) 30,2:227–41. These authors also provide an extensive summary of other studies that examine the income of absent fathers.
  24. For a more detailed discussion of the matching procedure and the data used in this study, see Brien, M.J., and Willis, R.J. Nonresident fathers: Their employment and child support potential. Paper presented at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences conference entitled From Work to Welfare: Effects on Parents and Children. Warrenton, VA, February 21-22, 1996.
  25. Mott, F.L. Evaluation of fertility data and preliminary analytic results from the 1983 (5th round) survey of the National Longitudinal Surveys of Work Experience of Youth. Columbus: Center for Human Resource Research, Ohio State University, 1985.
  26. These percentage obligations assume that the man fathers all subsequent children with the same mother. If he fathers a second child by a different woman, his obligation to the first child would be 17% of his income, net of his obligation to the second child, yielding an obligation of 14.1% [0.17 x (1 - 0.17)] rather than 12.5%. Thus, the estimates of a man's potential child support payments are slightly conservative since the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) does not permit predictions regarding the number of partners with whom a man fathers children.
  27. Moffitt, R.A., Reville, R., and Winkler, A.E. Beyond single mothers: Cohabitation, marriage, and the U.S. welfare system. Unpublished paper, 1995.
  28. It should be noted that the fathers in the National Maternal and Infant Health Survey (NMIHS) represent a broader age range than those in the NLSY. In the NLSY, only the oldest respondents have reached their mid-30s. Within the NMIHS, almost 90% of the partners of AFDC mothers are less than 35 years old.
  29. Given the large differences in marriage and fertility behavior between whites and blacks, the subsequent analysis is done separately by race.