ERIC Number: ED460181
Record Type: Non-Journal
Publication Date: 2001-Nov-20
Pages: 35
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on Nonmarital and Marital Births: Does It Differ by Racial and Age Groups? JCPR Working Paper.
Huang, Chien-Chung
Using data from the 1979-98 waves of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, this paper investigated the effect of child support enforcement on marital and nonmarital births, noting differences by age and race. The study examined 4,715 women who were followed from 1979 to their first birth or to 1998. Data also came from various years of the State Legislative Summary from the National Conference of State Legislatures and the Office of Child Support Enforcement Legislative Tracking System Report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Data analysis provided evidence that women who lived in states with effective child support enforcement, measured by both strict child support legislation and high child support expenditure, were more likely to have marital births and less likely to have nonmarital births. The findings suggest that the deterrence effect of child support enforcement on men dominated the opposite effect on women. The impact of child support enforcement differed by racial and age groups. For African American women, effective child support enforcement had a strong effect on decreasing nonmarital births, but not for increasing marital births. The impact went the opposite way for white and/or post-teenage women. (Contains 61 references.) (SM)
Descriptors: Age Differences, Birth Rate, Births to Single Women, Child Support, Females, Pregnancy, Racial Differences, Sex Differences, State Legislation
For full text: http://www.jcpr.org/wp/wpdownload.cfm?pdflink=wpfiles/huang DULsg00_01.pdf.
Publication Type: Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: Department of Health and Human Services, Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Joint Center for Poverty Research, IL.
Identifiers - Laws, Policies, & Programs: Child Support Enforcement
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A