The Effect of Child Support on Selection into Marriage and Fertility
@article{Tannenbaum2020TheEO, title={The Effect of Child Support on Selection into Marriage and Fertility}, author={Daniel I. Tannenbaum}, journal={Journal of Labor Economics}, year={2020}, volume={38}, pages={611 - 652} }
This paper studies the expansion of US child support policies from 1977 to 1992 and its consequences for marriage and fertility decisions. I develop a model showing that child support enforces ex ante commitment from men to provide financial support in the event of a child, which (1) increases premarital sex among couples unlikely to marry and (2) reduces the abortion rate by reducing the cost of child-rearing to single moms. Using variation in the rollout relative to the timing of nonmarital…
8 Citations
Can Public Policy Increase Paternity Acknowledgment? Evidence from Earnings-Related Parental Leave
- EconomicsSSRN Electronic Journal
- 2022
A child’s family structure is a fundamental determinant of future well-being, making it essential to understand how public policies affect the involvement of fathers. In this paper, we exploit a…
Child Support Enforcement and Child Mortality
- Economics, PsychologyApplied Economics Letters
- 2020
ABSTRACT This paper explores the potential benefit of enforcements in Child Support policies to child mortality rates. Exploiting the sharp changes in Child Support laws across states and over the…
Betting the House: The Role of Homeownership in Marital Commitment and Child Investments
- Economics
- 2018
Investments in children are enjoyed by both parents, but may disproportionately affect the mother’s future earning potential, rendering her more sensitive to the risk of relationship dissolution. We…
Untying the Knot: How Child Support and Alimony Affect Couples’ Decisions and Welfare
- Economics
- 2020
In many countries divorce law mandates post-marital maintenance payments (child support and alimony) to insure the lower earner in married couples against financial losses upon divorce. This paper…
The Economics of Shotgun Marriage
- Economics
- 2021
Many couples marry either just before or soon after they have their first child. I show that married couples who have the first child before or in the year of marriage (kids-first) divorce around…
Collateralized Marriage
- Economics
- 2020
We study the role of wealth in the marriage contract by developing a model of the household where investments in public goods can be made at the cost of future earnings. If couples cannot commit ex…
More or Less Unmarried. The Impact of Legal Settings of Cohabitation on Labor Market Outcomes
- Economics, LawSSRN Electronic Journal
- 2021
We show how the legal settings of unmarried cohabitation affect partners' labor market outcomes. In Canada, cohabiting couples are automatically entitled to certain rights after a few years of…
Do courts know how to incentivize? Behavioral response of non-resident parents to child support obligations
- PsychologyChildren and Youth Services Review
- 2022
References
SHOWING 1-10 OF 67 REFERENCES
The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on Fertility, Parental Investments, and Child Well-Being
- Psychology, EconomicsThe Journal of Human Resources
- 2006
Increasing the probability of paying child support, in addition to increasing resources available for investment in children, also may alter the incentives faced by men to have children out of…
Divorce, Fertility and the Shot Gun Marriage
- Economics, HistorySSRN Electronic Journal
- 2006
Total fertility declined in states that introduced unilateral divorce, which makes dissolution of marriage easier. Also the ratio of out-of-wedlock fertility over total declined. We suggest an…
The effect of child support enforcement on child support payments
- Psychology
- 1991
This paper examines the effect of state child support enforcement legislation on child support received from absent fathers by ever-married women due support in 1978 or 1981. The analysis is based…
The Impact of Child Support Enforcement Policy on Nonmarital Childbearing.
- Psychology, Economics
- 2007
The interaction of welfare and child support regulations has created a situation in which child support policy's incentives that discourage unwed fatherhood tend to be stronger than its incentives…
A Theory of Out‐of‐Wedlock Childbearing
- EconomicsJournal of Political Economy
- 1999
In 1960, marriage was a virtual precondition for childbearing. By 1997, out‐of‐wedlock births accounted for 26 percent of fertility among whites and 69 percent among blacks. This paper presents a…
The Role of Paternity Presumption and Custodial Rights for Understanding Marriage Patterns
- Economics
- 2013
In marriage, men obtain and women surrender parental rights because: (i) by default, an unmarried woman giving birth is the child's only known parent and sole custodian; (ii) a married mother shares…
Signing Up New Fathers: Do Paternity Establishment Initiatives Increase Marriage, Parental Investment, and Child Well-Being?
- Psychology
- 2017
With nearly half of US births occurring out of wedlock, understanding how parents navigate their relationship options is important. This paper examines the consequences of a large exogenous change to…
Dunning Delinquent Dads: the Effects of Child Support Enforcement on Child Support Receipt by Never Married Women
- Psychology, Economics
- 1998
Using data from administrative records, the Survey of Income and Program Participation, and the Current Population Survey, we find that the proportion of never married mothers receiving child support…
An Analysis of Out-of-Wedlock Childbearing in the United States
- Economics
- 1996
This paper relates the erosion of the custom of shotgun marriage to the legalization of abortion and the increased availability of contraception to unmarried women in the United States. The decline…
CHILD SUPPORT IN THE U.S.: CAN FATHERS AFFORD TO PAY MORE?
- Economics, Psychology
- 1997
This paper presents up-to-date estimates of the ability of nonresident fathers to pay child support. While no nationally representative data exist on the incomes of fathers, this issue has become…