Introduction

The past 20 years have seen an increase in the percentage of families headed by single parents in virtually all countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). In the United States, for example, the percentage rose from 22.7 to 27.1 between 1986 and 1996 (OECD, 1999). Over the same period of time, the rate of expansion of government programmes and transfers among OECD countries has declined. Because of these two trends, the collection of private child support has increasingly come to be perceived as a vital source of financial support for single parent families and an important issue in public policy.

Several OECD countries, for example, have established new policies and programmes aimed at increasing the number and level of private child support payments.

Have these attempts succeeded? Have these countries improved their collection of child support over time and in relation to other OECD countries? More generally, how has the collection of private child support evolved in OECD countries over the past two decades? Where do we stand today? In this chapter, we provide preliminary answers to these questions using data from the Luxembourg Income Study (LIS) between the late 1970s and the mid-1990s to examine the levels and trends of child support payments in seven OECD countries. This chapter proceeds as follows. In the next section, we present some background information about child support in general and provide a brief overview of recent changes in child support policies in the countries we examine. Next, we describe the data and methodology used to answer these questions. We then present our results and discuss their implications.

Background

In its broadest sense, child support refers to an income transfer to the caretaker of a child with a non-resident parent (Garfinkel, 1992). Child support can be either public or private. In the US, public child support – financed through the government – is provided through programmes such as the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families and Food Stamps. These programmes are not limited to children with a non-resident parent, but many poor children in single parent families are eligible for them. Private child support is provided by the non-resident parent. The same distinction between public and private child support exists in other countries, although some countries specifically provide benefits, usually in the form of an assured child support benefit, specifically for children in single parent families.