Showing papers by "Irwin Garfinkel published in 2003"

The roles of child support enforcement and welfare in non-marital childbearing

Abstract: This paper examines the effects of stronger child support enforcement and declines in welfare benefits on changes in non-marital childbearing between 1980 and 1996. Economic theory suggests that stricter child support enforcement will increase the costs of children for unwed fathers, making them less likely to have a child outside marriage. Reductions in welfare benefits also are expected to increase the costs of non-marital childbearing for both mothers and fathers. We examine these hypotheses, using aggregate state-level data and fixed effects regression models to identify the effects of policies on non-marital birth rates. We find that both stricter child support enforcement and declines in welfare benefits deter non-marital births. However, the estimated effects of child support enforcement are more robust and larger than those of welfare. The estimates imply that in the 1980–1996 period, increases in child support enforcement led to a decline in non-marital birth rates in the range of 6% to 9%, whereas decreases in welfare benefits led to a decline in the range of 2% to 4%.

Child Support Enforcement, Joint Legal Custody, and Parental Involvement

Abstract: This article uses the 1992–98 waves of the Current Population Survey‐Child Support Supplement to examine whether state child support enforcement affects the likelihood of divorced parents choosing joint legal custody and whether such custody increases the involvement of nonresident parents. This involvement is measured by child support payment and visitation. We find that effective child support enforcement increases the probability of joint legal custody. Joint legal custody also increases the involvement of nonresident parents in their children’s lives, although these effects diminish over time.

The Importance of Family Structure and Family Income on Family's Educational Expenditure and Children's College Attendance Empirical Evidence from Taiwan

Abstract: Using the 1991-1998 Survey of Family Income and Expenditure, we analyzed the determinants of college attendance rates and educational expenditure among families with children in Taiwan, paying particular attention to the effects of family structure and family income. The findings indicate that higher family income is consistently associated with higher college attendance rates and spending on education. Children in single-parent families have lower college attendance rates than children in two-parent families. Furthermore, single-parent families spend less on education. When family income is taken into account, single-mother families are not significantly different from two-parent families on the outcome variables. Single-father families, however, are estimated to have significantly lower college attendance rates and educational expenditure after controlling for family income. These results suggest that improving the economic security of single-parent families will increase their children's attainment in ...

Do Public Expenditures Improve Child Outcomes in the U.S.? A Comparison across Fifty States

Abstract: Our paper utilizes variation across the 50 U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators, including measures of child mortality, elementary-school test scores, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. States that spend more on children have better child outcomes even after taking into account potential confounding influences. Our results are robust to numerous variations in model specifications and to the inclusion of proxies for unobserved characteristics of states. Our sensitivity analyses suggest that the results we present may be conservative, yet our findings show that public investments in children yield broad short-term returns in the form of improved child outcomes.

Unwed Parents in the US: Myths, Realities, and Policy Making

Abstract: The Fragile Families Study, a survey of 5,000 children representative of all non-marital births in US cities with populations of over 200,000, provides new evidence on the characteristics of unmarried parents and their children. Initial analyses reported in this article reveal that the typical unmarried mother is in her early twenties and cohabiting at the birth of her children. Almost one third are Hispanic and 51 per cent non-Hispanic black. The great majority of unwed parents are committed to each other and their children at the time of birth but most are poorly equipped to support themselves and their children.

Do public expenditures improve child outcomes in the u.s.: a comparison across fifty states

Abstract: Our paper utilizes variation across the fifty U.S. states to examine the relationship between public expenditures on children and child outcomes. We find that public expenditures on children are related to better child outcomes across a wide range of indicators including measures of child mortality, elementary-school test scores, and adolescent behavioral outcomes. States that spend more on children have better child outcomes even after taking into account potential confounding influences. Our results are robust to numerous variations in model specifications and to the inclusion of proxies for unobserved characteristics of states. Our sensitivity analyses suggest that the results we present may be conservative, yet our findings show that public investments in children yield broad short-term returns in the form of improved child outcomes.

Explaining The Trend In Teenage Birth Rates From 1981-1999

Abstract: We investigate the influence of changes in demography, the strength of the economy, and social policies on teen birth rates in the US from 1981 to 1999, a period of wildly fluctuating rates We find that demographic and social policy changes largely counteracted one another during this period with the growth in the Hispanic population as the primary factor driving rates up, and the tightening of the Child Support Enforcement program as the primary factor pushing rates down Our results suggest that if the demographic variables that we measure had remained at their 1981 levels, teens would have had 340,000 (or 36 percent) fewer births than were observed over this period At the same time, if welfare benefits and Child Support Enforcement expenditures had remained at their 1981 levels, teens would have had almost 484,000 (or 52 percent) more births than observed Although related to teen birth rates, the economy does not appear to have played much of a role in the trend in teen birth rates