## Non-Custodial Parents' Participation in Their Children's Lives:

### Evidence from the Survey of Income and Program Participation

### Volume I

### Summary of SIPP Analysis

- Christine Winquist Nord and Nicholas Zill
- Westat, Inc.
- Subcontractor to the Lewin Group, Inc.
- Prepared for the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning andEvaluation, DHHS
- August 14, 1996

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### ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This project was funded by the Assistant Secretary for Planning andEvaluation, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, through contractnumber HHS-100-93-0012, Delivery Order 11.  The study was conducted by Westat,Inc. under a subcontract to The Lewin Group.  We wish to thank our Westatcolleagues, Margaret Daly and Amy Van Driessche who took on the challenge ofpreparing all the tables and charts, and Laura Loomis who generously agreed tohelp annotate key articles.  We also gratefully acknowledge our two excellentprogrammers, Peter Robert Shaw of R.W. Beck and Nina Blecher, a consultant. Both easily navigated the complexities of the Survey of Income and ProgramParticipation.  Without them, the analyses would not have gone so smoothly.  Thanks also to Burt Barnow and David Stapleton of The Lewin Group.  Burt sharedhis expertise with us, read drafts of the report, and gave us encouragement andcomments.  David gently, but firmly reminded us of the schedule.  It was apleasure working with Anne Benson, our Project Officer, and Linda Mellgren, bothof ASPE.  Linda and Anne patiently read and reread several drafts of the reportand offered valuable advice and comments.  We also thank Barbara Cleveland andSusan Notar of the Office of Child Support Enforcement for sharing their workand providing us with comments.  Thanks also to the DHHS Work Group forproviding comments on the project:  David Arnaudo, Gaile Maller, and Mary Cohen,Office of Child Support Enforcement; Marianne Rufty, David Smith, Ken Maniha,Mark Fucello, Administration for Children and Families; and Paul Legler andJeanine Smartt, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation.      

### Table of Contents

**ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS**

**EXECUTIVE SUMMARY**

**INTRODUCTION**

**RESEARCH METHODS**

Data 

Creation of Analytic Files

**FINDINGS**

Joint Custody

Voluntary versus Court-Ordered Agreements

Visitation Provisions

Paternal Involvement

Separated Parents Residing in Different Cities or States

Child Support

Custodial Fathers/Non-Residential Mothers

Custodial Parents Without Child Support Awards

Separated Parents Who Have Never Been Married to EachOther

Children's Well-Being

**SUMMARY OF FINDINGS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES**

**CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS**

Encouraging Voluntary Agreements

Requiring Explicit Visitation Provisions

Encouraging and Facilitating Non-residential Parents'Access to Their Children

Promoting Joint Custody Arrangements

Limiting Moves by Divorced Parents

Other Implications of the SIPP Findings

**SUMMARY**

**REFERENCES**

**APPENDIX A: Child Support Module 1990 and 1991Panels of SIPP**

**APPENDIX B: Comparability of SIPP Estimates andCurrent Population Survey Estimates**

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### EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

#### INTRODUCTION

Divorce and non-marital childbearing have become commonplace and havedramatically altered children's lives.  It can no longer be assumed that mostchildren will spend their entire childhoods living with both parents.   To thecontrary, approximately half will live in single parent homes at some pointbefore they turn age 18.   Unfortunately, a common pattern is for thenon-residential parent to become increasingly detached over time, paying minimalor no child support and visiting infrequently if at all.  The costs to thechildren involved and to society at large of this disengagement are far fromtrivial.  Many non-custodial parents do not pay all the child support they owe. Many others have no obligation to pay support.  Nonpayment of support forcessome families below the poverty level and onto government welfare programs.  Forothers, it means a reduced standard of living and an uncertain future.  Thecosts to children are seen in an increased likelihood of dropping out of schooland increased, social, emotional, psychological, and behavioral problems.  Notall children are affected and some that are overcome their difficulties in a fewyears, but others experience long-term setbacks.

The connections between custody arrangements, payment of child support,parental involvement, and child well-being are still not well-understood.  Manyof the studies on which policy is being made are based on small,unrepresentative samples or on the experiences of divorcing couples inparticular states.  These studies may not reflect the experience of mostcustodial parents and their children.  If the assumptions about the positiveinfluence of joint custody, for example, or links between payment of childsupport and visitation are wrong, then the outcomes for families and childrenmay not be to their benefit after all.   Although not based on experimentaldesigns, national survey data can be used to cast more light on the issuessurrounding visitation, custody, child support, and child well-being and providepolicymakers with a more solid base from which to proceed.

The aim of this project was to improve understanding of the relationshipbetween non-custodial parent involvement, children's well-being, child support,and custody arrangements.  Two approaches were used.  Analyses of data from theSurvey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) were used to provide nationalestimates of persons living in different custody arrangements, and to examinethe connections between custody arrangements, child support payments, parentalinvolvement, and children's well-being in both the divorced and never-marriedpopulations.  In addition, a review of recent literature was conducted and gapsin the research were noted.  The findings of the review were used to guide theSIPP analyses.  Also, as part of the project, a limited set of articles wasannotated and a bibliography of selected papers on custody, visitation, andchild well-being was created.  The analyses of SIPP are contained in Volume I ofthis report.  The literature review, selected annotated articles, and theextended bibliography are contained in Volume II.  In addition, supplementarytables based on the SIPP were produced.  These tables show the demographiccharacteristics, economic status, and living conditions of custodial parents,and selected measures of children's well-being by the existence of a childsupport award and whether child support was received, whether the agreement wasvoluntary or court-ordered, and the type of arrangement.  Information ondemographic background, the economic status, and the living conditions of thecustodial parent and selected measures of child well-being are also shown by theamount of visitation with the non-resident parent.  These tables were preparedfor all custodial parents, for female custodial parents, for male custodialparents, and for divorced female custodial parents.  The sample size for malecustodial parents is small in some cells of the tables, so caution should beused in drawing inferences from these tables.  

**VOLUME I:****SUMMARY OF SIPP ANALYSES**

The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) is based on a nationalprobability sample of the U.S. civilian, non-institutionalized population.  Itis funded and conducted by the U.S. Bureau of the Census.  The SIPP is a majorsource of information about the demographic and economic situation of personsand families in the United States.  The SIPP is one of two national surveyscontaining extensive amounts of child support information.  The other survey isthe Current Population Survey.

There are three reasons why SIPP was uniquely suited to examine therelationship of child support, child custody, and child well-being:  (1)detailed programmatic information; (2) longitudinal nature of the data, and (3)a child support module with questions on award, payment, custody, visitation,and child well-being.  There are a variety of questions that can be used toassess the economic well-being of such children and, to a lesser extent, theirsocial well-being.  SIPP also contains topical modules which ask about consumerdurables owned by each household, the living conditions of households, and theability of households to meet basic needs.  These modules were used tocharacterize the circumstances in which children are growing up.  In addition,the SIPP contains information about the health of persons aged 15 and older.

The analyses relied on a variety of methods.  Frequencies andcrosstabulations were used to develop profiles of custodial parents withdifferent child support characteristics, such as the number of persons withjoint physical and legal custody arrangements, and information about the extentof non-cash support received from non-residential parents.  In addition,ordinary least squares regression and logistic regression were used to examinein more detail the predictors of child support and visitation.  Multivariatemodels were also estimated to examine the link between child support awards,custody arrangements, visitation, and payment of child support on children'shealth and on the receipt of AFDC in the previous year.

**Highlights of Descriptive Findings**

- Twenty-one percent or 1.3 million custodial parents with formal writtenchild support agreements report that they have a joint custody arrangement.  Ofthese, over 1 million (80%) have a joint legal only arrangement.  The remaining262 thousand report that they have a joint legal and physical custodyarrangement.
- A large minority of custodial parents (45%) have never had a chid supportagreement of any type.  About 14 percent of custodial parents without a writtenaward report that the non-resident parent provided child support or non-cashassistance in the previous year.
- Court-ordered agreements are the most common type of written agreement. Seventy-three percent of custodial parents with written agreement report thatthey had court-ordered agreements.  Twenty-three percent report that theagreements were voluntary ones ratified by the court.  Three percent report thatthey had some other type of written agreement, such as one not ratified by thecourt.
- Nearly two-thirds (64.6%) or almost 4 million custodial parents withwritten agreements report that their agreements contain visitation provisions.

- According to the reports of custodial mothers with written agreements,nearly one-third (32%) of non-resident fathers have not spent time with theirchildren in the previous 12 months.  However, nearly one-quarter (24%) ofnon-resident fathers see their children at least once a week.  
- Non-resident mothers are more likely to visit their children and to seethem more often than non-resident fathers.  Sixteen percent of non-residentmothers had not visited their children in the past year compared to 32 percentof non-resident fathers.  Thirty-five percent of non-resident mothers saw theirchildren once a week or more compared to 24 percent of non-resident fathers.
- Custodial parents with written child support agreements who were owed childsupport, received about 65 percent of what they were due.  Parents withvoluntary agreements received 73 percent of what they were due, while those withcourt-ordered agreements received 62 percent of what they were due.  Parentsliving in the same city or county as the non-residant parent received 70 percentof what was due compared to 58 parent if the non-resident parent lived in adifferent state.

**Multivariate Results and Policy Implications**

This study is not a randomized policy experiment or even a non-randomizedstudy of specific policy initiatives.  Thus, we must be circumspect about howfar we go in drawing policy-related conclusions about the findings.  Acorrelational panel study such as the present one cannot prove that a givenpolicy will work as its advocates content it should.  An observed relationshipmay be due to the operation of other, unmeasured factors.  However, the *failure*to find an expected correlation can provide firmer grounds for believing that aspecific policy will *not* work as anticipated.  These results apply tocouples who have a written child support agreement.  Information on contact andpayment of child support was not asked of persons without a written agreement. With these warnings in mind, the SIPP analyses provide support for the followingtypes of activities:

- Encouraging parents to establish child support agreements through aprocess of bargaining and mutual agreement, whenever feasible, rather thanthrough litigation and court mandate, and providing services, if needed, toassist in the process .  Multivariate models indicated that even aftercontrolling for background characteristics, fathers who had a voluntary writtenagreement ratified by the court maintained more contact with their children,were more likely to pay some child support, complied more fully with the childsupport orders, and paid greater amounts of child support than fathers who hadcourt-ordered child support agreements.
- Encouraging couples to specify visitation provisions in theiragreements .  Nonresidential fathers had significantly more contact withtheir children when the child support agreement had an explicit provisionspecifying the frequency and schedule of visitation than when such a provisionwas not present in the agreement.  The existence of a visitation provision,however, had no direct effect on the payment of child support.
- Encouraging and facilitating contact between non-resident fathers andtheir children, when feasible .  The SIPP analyses suggest that continuedcontact with the non-resident father has a beneficial influence on older teensand young adults.  Moreover contact had a positive association with both thepayment of child support and with compliance with child support orders. Although this relationship diminished with the addition of past child supportbehavior to the model, the positive sign remained suggesting that contact is nothindering the payment of child support and is actually exerting pressure towardsthe payment of child support.  
-  Promoting joint custody arrangements .  The results of the analyseswere broadly supportive of arguments for joint custody, though the influence ofjoint custody differed somewhat depending upon whether it was joint legal orjoint legal and physical.  Nonresidential fathers with joint legal and physicalcustody were more likely to have paid some child support in the current year(significant at .10 level) and to have complied more fully with their supportobligations than fathers in other arrangements.  There was no difference in theprobability of paying support or in the degree of compliance with the childsupport orders between fathers with joint legal only custody arrangements andother fathers.  However, fathers with joint legal only arrangements paid largeramounts of support than other fathers, even after controlling for thedemographic and socioeconomic characteristics of the custodial parent and otherpossible mediating factors.

###  VOLUME II:  SYNTHESIS OF LITERATURE

The literature review contains three components:  a synthesis of theliterature on child development, custody, visitation, and child well-being; anannotated bibliography; and a selected bibliography.  The synthesis brieflysummarizes recent perspectives on children's development and on the role of thefather in families.   These two perspectives are important in understanding howand why marital disruption may affect children.  The fact that children changeover time, developing new skills and capacities and having different needs meansthat their response to the breakup of their families may differ depending upontheir age at the time.  Moreover, since the majority of non-custodial parentsare fathers, it is important to understand the role that fathers play inchildren's lives and how that role changes as children grow older.  The review then discusses several possible ways in which family disruption may affectchildren's lives.  These are the loss of a parent (usually the father), theadjustment of the custodial parent, parental conflict, economic hardshipstemming from the disruption, stressful life changes, including the loss ofsocial supports and other resources.  Gaps in existing research are noted.  Keyfindings that helped guide the SIPP analysis are:

- All persons who are involved in working with single parent families andwith divorcing families need to be made more aware of the developmental needs ofchildren, the potential difficulties that they will face from family disruptionor turmoil, and steps that could ease those difficulties.  
- Given that conflict, if inappropriately handled, can be harmful to childrenand can alienate the two adults so that they cannot cooperate over mattersconcerning the child's well-being, it is important to provide services to reduceconflict or to express it in a healthier manner. 
- Several studies showed that all the parties in a divorce experience stress. The stress can adversely affect the custodial parent's ability to functioneffectively; it can serve to inhibit the non-custodial parent from remaininginvolved in the child's life; and it may affect how the child adjusts to familydisruption and turmoil.  More research and training on how to reduce stress isneeded. 
- Given that most children desire the continuing presence of a father intheir lives and that fathers may disengage from their parental responsibilitiesin part because they feel no sense of control over the new arrangements, stepsshould be taken to enable fathers when it is at all feasible to have a moreactive post-divorce role.  

- There is a scarcity of research that has examined couples who neverestablish awards and couples who never married each other.  Such couples areparticularly vulnerable economically and the children face risks as well.

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### NON-CUSTODIAL PARENTS PARTICIPATION IN THEIR CHILDREN'S LIVES:  EVIDENCEFROM THE SURVEY OF INCOME AND PROGRAM PARTICIPATION

Christine Winquist Nord and Nicholas Zill

Westat, Inc.

### INTRODUCTION

The sustained high rates of divorce and non-marital childbearing in thiscountry have altered children's lives.  It can no longer be assumed thatchildren will spend their entire childhoods living with both their parents. Many children undergo the painful experience of witnessing their parents'marriages fall apart.  Others are born to parents who never marry.  Some ofthese children never have the experience of living in a stable two-parent home.

Research has shown that a common pattern following the breakup of a familyis for one of the parents to become increasingly detached, paying little or nochild support and visiting infrequently if at all (Seltzer, 1991; Furstenberg etal., 1983; Peterson and Nord, 1988).  Various reforms have been proposed to tryto remedy this situation, but there is a need for evidence on the potentialimpact of different reforms.  Maccoby and Mnookin (1992), Braver et al. (1991),and others have conducted a variety of studies that provide intriguing insightsinto custody and child support issues and the potential effects on families andchildren.  These studies are often confined to specific states, such asCalifornia, or sections of the subpopulation, such as persons filing fordivorce, and may not be representative of the nation at large.  Large nationalsurveys, though not based on experimental designs, can provide data thatilluminate the issues and that suggest likely outcomes of different policies. Data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) have been used to provideinformation on custody arrangements, payment of child support, and contact withthe non-residential parent (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995, 1991).  However,the CPS lacks a longitudinal component and has very limited information onchildren's well-being.  The Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)does have a longitudinal component and contains more information that can beused to describe the conditions of children's lives.  For these reasons, we usethe SIPP to provide national estimates of persons living in different custodyarrangements and to examine the connections between custody arrangements, childsupport payments, parental involvement, and children's well-being in both thedivorced and never-married populations.  In particular, we examine the followingtopics:

- Joint Custody .  Joint custody arrangements are becomingincreasingly popular.  As of 1995, 43 states allow joint custody arrangements(Notar, 1995).  Some states, such as California, promote them.  We provideinformation on the number of parents who have joint physical and legalarrangements as opposed to joint legal only.  We also provide information on thedemographic characteristics of families that enter into joint custodyarrangements and how they differ from families with sole custody arrangements.
- Voluntary versus Court-Ordered Agreements .  Agreements which arereached voluntarily and ratified by the court may be indicative of a lesshostile relationship between former partners than court-ordered agreements.  Weprovide information on the link between how a child support agreement wasarranged and payment of child support, visitation, and the well-being of thefamilies in which children primarily reside.
- Visitation Provisions .  Visitation arrangements are often made inconjunction with child support agreements.  However, not all child supportagreements contain visitation provisions and it is also possible to specifyvisitation provisions without specifying child support.  We examine whetherhaving an explicit visitation provision is associated with contact, payment ofchild support, or characteristics of the families in which children reside.
- Paternal Involvement .  Several studies have documented thatfollowing a divorce, the amount of time that the non-custodial fathers spendwith their children decreases.  Factors that research suggests may contribute tothe disengagement process include geographic mobility, remarriage of eitherparent, lack of a meaningful role for the non-resident parent in the child'slife, and lack of access to the child.  We examine the effects of differentcustody arrangements, family structure, and economic circumstances on the amountof contact non-residential fathers spend with their children. 
- Separated Parents Living in Different Cities or States .  Severalstudies have indicated that non-residential parents are less likely to visittheir children if they do not live in the same city or county.  We examine inmore detail the link between where the non-resident parent lives and contact,payment of child support, and the economic well-being of the child's residentialfamily.
- Child Support .  Several studies have found an association betweenthe amount of contact that non-residential parents have with their children andthe amount of child support paid, but it is not clear whether visitationincreases payment of child support, payment of child support increasesvisitation, the two are mutually reinforcing, or a third factor influences both. We use the longitudinal component of SIPP to begin to sort out therelationships between visitation and payment of child support.  We also examinefactors that are associated with the payment of child support and withcompliance with child support orders.
- Custodial Fathers/Non-Residential Mothers .  Relatively littleresearch has studied men who have custody of their children following divorce,separation, or non-marriage.  We provide more information about thecharacteristics of fathers who are custodial parents and also about the extentto which non-residential mothers visit their children and pay child support.
- Custodial Parents Without Child Support Awards .  Numerous studieshave indicated that custodial parents without child support awards are much lesslikely to receive child support than those with awards.  We provide informationon how custodial parents without awards differ from those with awards and theextent to which they receive cash or non-cash assistance from their formerpartners.
- Separated Parents Who Have Never Been Married to Each Other .  Muchof the research on child support pays virtually no attention to parents who havenot been married to each other.  We provide information about thecharacteristics of custodial parents who did not marry their former partner, theextent to which such parents establish child support agreements, and how thosewho establish agreements differ from those who do not.  
- Children's Well-Being .  We use the information that SIPP containsto examine the link between child support, custody arrangements, visitation, andchildren's well-being.   Although SIPP does not contain extensive informationabout children's well-being, it can be used to look at the living conditions ofchildren's families and at their economic well-being.  SIPP also contains someinformation on the health of children aged 15 and older.

This volume details the results from the SIPP analyses.  A companion volume(Volume II) contains a synthesis of recent literature on child support, childcustody, visitation, and child well-being, as well as annotations of selectedarticles, and a bibliography of related articles identified during the review,not all of which were included in the synthesis.  

In the next section, we provide an overview of the SIPP data and the filesthat were created for the analyses.  The following section describes ourfindings.  We conclude the report with a discussion of the potential policyimplications of our research.

### RESEARCH METHODS

#### Data

SIPP is based on a national probability sample of the U.S. civilian,non-institutionalized population.  It is funded and conducted by the U.S. Bureauof the Census.  An advisory panel with representatives from selected federalagencies oversees the questionnaire design and frequency of interviewing of theChild Support Module.  The SIPP is a major source of information about thedemographic and economic situation of persons and families in the United States. The primary focus of SIPP is adults ages 15 years or older.  Because of SIPP'sdetailed programmatic information and the longitudinal nature of the data, thechild support module supplements and expands the type of information availablefrom the Current Population Survey.(1)  

The 1990 panel of SIPP interviewed approximately 20,000 individuals aged 15and older.  However the number of adults who responded to the child supportmodule (those who are custodial parents of children under 21 who had a parentliving elsewhere) is much smaller: 3,124.  The 1991 panel interviewedapproximately 14,000 individuals in the same age range.  Of these, 1,619 wereeligible for the child support module.  The child support module was collectedduring Wave 3 (October 1990 to January 1991) and Wave 6 (October 1991 to January1992) of the 1990 panel and during Wave 3 (October 1991 to January 1992) of the1991 panel. 

Although children under age 15 are not interviewed, there are a variety ofquestions that can be used to assess the economic well-being of such childrenand, to a lesser extent, their social well-being.  SIPP contains topical moduleswhich ask about consumer durables owned by each household, the living conditionsof households, and the ability of households to meet basic needs.  These modulescan be used to characterize the circumstances in which children are growing up. In addition, the SIPP topical module on functional limitations asks whetherchildren aged 6 and older have ever received special education services or ifthey are limited in their ability to do regular school work because of aphysical, learning, or mental health condition.  SIPP also obtains informationabout the health and educational attainment of persons aged 15 and older.   

The SIPP has been underutilized to study issues surrounding child support,yet the use of SIPP allows analyses that are not possible with the more commonlyused Current Population Survey.  Advantages of the SIPP over the CPS include thefollowing:  

-  SIPP contains information not available in the CPS.  For example, with theSIPP it is possible to obtain estimates of the number of persons with jointlegal and physical custody and those with joint legal custody only.  SIPP alsoasks about the receipt of non-cash items or services for child support;
-  the longitudinal nature of SIPP allows researchers to perform an over-timeexamination of the relationship between child support payment patterns andvisitation patterns for both custodial mothers and custodial fathers;
- SIPP contains a broad array of income and family well-being measures.  SIPPobtains monthly income amounts and contains monthly poverty thresholds so thatit is possible to look at the stability of family income during the course of ayear.  Wave 6 of the 1991 Panel of SIPP also contains a module about livingconditions, consumer durables available to households, and the ability ofhouseholds to meet basic needs.  This information in combination with theinformation collected about child support and visitation allows researchers toexamine in more depth the relationship between child support, custody, andvisitation and the circumstances in which children are living one year later.  

SIPP is not without its limitations, however.  Among these are thefollowing:

- In the 1990 and 1991 panels of SIPP, questions about contact with thenon-custodial parent were only asked if there was a written child supportagreement.  This limitation was rectified in the 1992 panel.  Unfortunately, the1992 panel was not available at the time this study was conducted.
- The sample size of SIPP is smaller than the CPS.  As noted above, theparent file we used based on the 1990 panel contains 3,124 custodial parents. The parent file based on the 1991 panel contained 1,619 custodial respondents. These sample sizes limit the types of analyses that can be conducted on somesubgroups such as male custodial parents and parents with split custodyarrangements.  The 1992 CPS child support supplement file contains about 4,800cases
- Only a limited number of items are available that can be used to describechildren's well-being and development.  This is also true of the CPS.
- Results depend on the respondents' interpretation and understanding of theterms such as "joint physical and legal custody," "joint legalwith mother [or father] physical custody," and "split custody,"as well as "court-ordered agreement" and "voluntary agreementratified by the court."

#### Creation of Analytic Files

Several files were created for this project.  Using data from the 1990Panel, we created a file of all parents who responded to the child supportmodules at either Wave 3 or Wave 6, one year later.  This file was used toexamine the interrelationship among type of custody arrangement, contact withthe non-residential parent, payment of child support, family structure, andeconomic circumstances.  Use of this file, allowed us to examine in more detailwhether changes in support tend to precede, follow, or coincide with changes invisitation.  It also permitted us to examine the relationship between differenttypes of custody arrangements and patterns of visitation.  This file alsoallowed us to examine a relatively understudied group, namely men who havecustody of their children following separation, divorce, or non-marriage.  Wecould thus examine patterns of visitation and payment of child support by femalenon-residential parents.

We also created a file of all children under 21.  Selected parentinformation, such as marital status and age, was attached to each child'srecord.  This file allowed us to study the effects of various custodyarrangements, child support payment patterns, and family structure on selectedaspects of children's well-being.

Parallel files were created using the 1991 panel.  Although the 1991 panelwas substantially smaller than the 1990 panel, the inclusion of the topicalmodules on living conditions and the ability of households to meet basic needsallowed us to delineate a fuller portrait of the circumstances of children'sfamilies following marital breakup.

### FINDINGS

In this section, we describe our results.  For each topic addressed, we listthe set of research questions that guided our research and our preliminaryhypotheses, if any.  We then describe the results that were actually obtained. Crosstabulations were used to answer many of the questions.  The observedassociations could change if potentially confounding factors such as maritalstatus, education, and age were statistically controlled.  Regression modelswere also used to answer some of the questions, particularly those that seek tounderstand the links between three or more factors such as child support,contact, and child custody.    

According to estimates from the 1990 Panel of SIPP, there were approximately12.4 million parents potentially eligible for child support in the United Statesin the Winter of 1990/91 because they had children under 21 living with them whohad a parent living elsewhere.(2)

As can be seen in  Figure 1, most custodial parents are mothers (88% or 10.9million).  However, there are an estimated 1.5 million custodial fathers (12% ofall custodial parents). 

#### Joint Custody

*How many divorced parents in the U.S. have joint custody arrangementsregarding their children?*

*How many have joint physical custody as well as joint legal custody?*

*What are the demographic characteristics of families that enter intojoint custody arrangements?  How do they differ from persons with sole custodyarrangements?*

*Is joint custody associated with greater economic well-being for thefamily in which the child primarily resides?*

*Is joint custody associated with more frequent contact between thenon-residential parent and the children than sole custody with visitation?*

*Is joint custody associated with payment of more or less child supportby the non-residential parent than sole custody with visitation?*

- H1 Persons who enter into joint custody arrangements will havecharacteristics that are conducive to greater economic well-being.  They will bemore educated, have formerly been married, have fewer children, and theresidential parent will be more likely to be employed than custodial parents insole custody arrangements.
- H2 Because of their favorable characteristics, they will be less likely tolive in poverty and will have better living conditions than families with othercustody arrangements.

The SIPP only asks about custody arrangements for persons with a formalwritten agreement.  According to data from SIPP, of the 6.2 million custodialparents with a written child support agreement, 74 percent have a sole custodyarrangement of some sort, 21 percent have a joint custody arrangement, and 5percent have a split custody or other type of arrangement.  

Joint legal custody is far more common than joint legal and physicalcustody.  Of the 1.3 million persons with joint custody arrangements, just over1 million (79.6%) have joint legal only arrangements with one of the parents,usually the mother, having physical custody.  The remaining 262 thousand (20.4%)report joint legal and physical arrangements.

Persons who enter into joint custody arrangements, as we expected, differ inseveral respects from persons with other types of arrangements (See Table 1). They are more likely to be currently divorced than persons with sole custodyarrangements (54.5% versus 43.6%) and less likely to be never married (1.21%versus 12.8%).  They are less likely to be black (6.9% versus 17.9%) or Hispanic(4.9% versus 7.7%) compared to persons in sole custody arrangements.  They alsotend to be better educated than persons with sole custody arrangements. Approximately 16 percent are college graduates compared to 10.7% of persons insole custody arrangements and only 12 percent have less than a high schooleducation compared to 16.8 percent with sole custody arrangements.

A somewhat smaller proportion of persons with joint custody arrangements areunder age 25 compared to persons with sole custody arrangements (5.5% versus9.6%), but the differences in the proportions aged 25-34, 35-44, and 45 andolder are not large.  Contrary to our expectations, there are not largedifferences in the number of children in the households of persons with jointcustody arrangements and those with sole custody arrangements.  There are alsonot large differences in the work pattern in the previous year between personswith joint custody arrangements and those with sole custody arrangements, thoughthose with joint custody are slightly less likely not to have worked the entireprevious year (16.7% versus 19.3%). 

As we hypothesized, persons with joint custody arrangements are economicallybetter off than persons with sole custody arrangements (see Table 2).  They areless likely to have experienced one or more months of poverty in the previousyear (26.5% versus 37.6%), to have received AFDC one or more months in theprevious year (7.2% versus 19.6%), or to have moved in the previous year (10.3%versus 16.7%) compared to persons with sole custody arrangements.  They alsoexperience less income instability during the course of the year (mean standarddeviation of monthly income is 27.9 compared to 32.2), have higher median familyincomes ($28,288  versus $24,655), and are more likely to own their own homes(63.1% versus 56.3%).

Table 1 p. 1

Table 1 p. 2

Table 2

Persons in joint custody arrangements not only are economically moreadvantaged, but their living conditions, in general, appear to be better as well(see Table 3).  They are more likely to own a personal computer (25.9% versus16%) than persons with sole custody arrangements.  They are less likely thanpersons in sole custody arrangements to lack one or more essential consumerdurables such as a telephone, stove, or refrigerator (4.7% versus 11.7%), tohave not paid their utility bills (18.2% versus 25.0%), to have had theirutilities turned off because of lack of payment (1.3% versus 6.2%), and to havehad their phone turned off because they didn't pay their bills (3.0% versus9.8%).  They also express more favorable attitudes about their neighborhoods. Fewer of them rate their neighborhood as unsafe (5.3% versus 12.1%) or say thatthere have been times in the past month that they wanted to go out but didn'tbecause they thought it would be unsafe (6.3% versus 11.6%).  They are also lesslikely to say that they want to move because of the poor quality of theirneighborhoods (6.6% versus 10.3%).  

The finding that persons with joint custody arrangements are better offeconomically and appear to have better living conditions than persons with solecustody arrangements more likely is due to the characteristics of people whoenter into joint custody arrangements than to the beneficial effects of thearrangement itself.  (If states encourage or require more parents to enter intojoint custody arrangements, it is possible that fewer economic differencesbetween persons in joint custody and in sole custody arrangements will beobserved.)      

Another advantage experienced by persons with joint custody arrangements isthat the amount of contact with the non-residential parent is higher (see Table4).  The mean number of days of contact in the previous year for persons withjoint custody arrangements who had at least some contact was 47.3 days comparedto 30.8 days for persons with sole custody arrangements and 32.4 days forpersons with sole custody arrangements with visitation provisions.  The mediandays of contact by the non-residential parent is also higher in joint custodyarrangements compared to sole custody arrangements  (30 days versus 7 days) orsole custody arrangements with visitation provisions (30 days versus 12 days).

Among persons receiving any child support, those with joint custody receivelarger amounts of child support than persons in sole custody arrangements (seeTable 2).  The median amount of child support received by persons in jointcustody arrangements is $3000 compared to $1920 of persons in sole custodyarrangements and $1980 of persons in sole custody arrangements with visitationprovisions.  The mean amount received by persons with joint custody arrangementsis also higher than that received by persons with a sole custody or with a solecustody arrangement with visitation provisions, $3661 versus $2467 and $2639,respectively. 

Table 3 p. 1

Table 3 p. 2

Table 4

Compliance with child support orders, defined as the ratio of child supportreceived to child support that was due in the previous year, is also greateramong parents with joint custody arrangements compared to parents with solecustody arrangements (see Table 2).  Custodial parents with joint custodyarrangements received 76 percent of what they were owed, whereas custodialparents with sole custody arrangements received only 62 percent of what theywere owed in the previous year.

#### Voluntary versus Court-Ordered Agreements

*How many divorced parents in the U.S. have voluntary as opposed tocourt-ordered child support agreements?*

*What are the demographic characteristics of persons who enter intovoluntary as opposed to court-ordered agreements?*

*Are voluntary agreements associated with greater economic well-being forthe family in which the child primarily resides than court-ordered agreements?*

*Are court-ordered agreements associated with less frequent contactbetween the non-residential parent and the children than voluntary agreements?*

*Are court-ordered agreements associated with payment of less childsupport by the non-residential parent than voluntary agreements?*

- H1 Voluntary agreements will be associated with greater economic well-beingfor the family in which the child primarily resides.
- H2 Voluntary agreements are probably indicative of a less hostilerelationship between former partners than court-ordered agreements.  For thisreason, voluntary agreements will be associated with more frequent contact andmore regular payment of child support than court-ordered agreements.

Most child support agreements are written agreements of some form.  Of the6.7 million custodial parents who have ever had a child support award, 91.5percent had a written agreement.  Only 8.5 percent had a non-written agreement. 

The most common type of written agreement is a court-ordered agreement. There are approximately 4.5 million court-ordered written agreements,constituting 73 percent of all written agreements ( see Figure 2).(3)  Suchagreements do not necessarily mean that the agreement was contested.  Another1.4 million agreements are voluntary written agreements ratified by the court. These agreements represent 23 percent of all written agreements.  There are onlyan estimated 204 thousand agreements (3% of all written agreements) that aresomething other than a voluntary agreement ratified by the court or acourt-ordered agreement, such as a written agreement that was not ratified bythe court.

Persons who voluntarily arrange a child support agreement differ in somerespects from those who have court-ordered agreements (see Table 5).  They areless likely to be never married than those with court-ordered agreements (5.9%versus 11.5%) or to be currently in their first marriage (2.6% versus 4.3%). They are somewhat more likely to be non-Hispanic whites (81.9% versus 73.7%) andto be 45 or older (15.1% versus 8.5%) than custodial parents with court-orderedagreements.  They also tend to be better educated:  19.9 percent are collegegraduates compared to 9.1 percent of custodial parents with court-orderedagreements.  They are more likely to have worked full-year, full-time in theprevious year than custodial parents with court-ordered agreements (58.2% versus46.6%).  

As we hypothesized, custodial parents with voluntary written agreements farebetter economically (see Table 6).  Their median family income is higher($30,531 versus $23,814).  They are also less likely than custodial parents withcourt-ordered agreements to experience one or more months of poverty in theprevious year (27.3% versus 38.1%) or to have received AFDC for one or moremonths (8.8% versus 19.3%).  They are more likely to own their own homes (67.9%versus 54.7%).  In spite of these differences in economic well-being, there isno real difference between the two groups on our measure of income instability. 

Custodial parents with voluntary agreements also appear to have betterliving conditions than custodial parents with court-ordered awards (see Table7).  They are less likely to lack an essential consumer durable such as atelephone, stove or refrigerator (7.1% versus 10.5%) and are more likely to owna personal computer (25.5% versus 15.2%).  They are also less likely to reportthat in the previous 12 months there was a time when they couldn't pay the fullamount of their utility bills (18.9% versus 26.4%), or that service had beenturned off because payments were not paid (2.8% versus 5.9%).  They are alsoless likely to report that someone in their household had not seen a doctor or adentist even though they needed to.  Twelve percent of custodial parents withvoluntary agreements reported that someone in their household hadn't seen adoctor even though they needed to compared to 16 percent of custodial parentswith court-ordered agreements.  Similarly 16.3 percent reported that someone intheir household hadn't seen a dentist even though they needed to compared to 19percent of custodial parents with court-ordered agreements.  Persons withvoluntary agreements are less likely than those with court-ordered agreements todescribe their neighborhood as unsafe (6.3% versus 12.8%) or that they  wouldlike to move because of the unsatisfactory neighborhood conditions (6% versus10.7%). 

Table 5 p.1

Table 5 p. 2

Table 6

Table 7 p. 1

Table 7 p. 2

Custodial parents with court-ordered agreements are twice as likely as thosewith voluntary agreements to report that the non-residential parent did notvisit the children at all in the previous year, 35.5 percent compared with 17.1percent ( see Figure 3).  Among custodial parents who report any contact with thenon-residential parent in the previous year, those with court-ordered agreementsreport fewer days of contact compared to those with voluntary agreements.  Themean number of days of contact in the previous year reported by those withcourt-ordered agreements was 28 days compared to 52 days for those withvoluntary agreements.  The median days of contact reported are 7 days and 26days, respectively.  

There are also differences in the amount of child support received and inthe receipt of non-cash assistance from the non-resident parent according towhether agreements were court-ordered or voluntary (see Table 6).  Custodialparents with voluntary agreements receive more child support and are more likelyto receive non-cash assistance than persons with court-ordered agreements.  Themedian amount of child support received by custodial parents with voluntaryarrangements is $2,750 compared to $1,900 among persons with court-orderedarrangements.  Moreover, nearly one-fifth of them (19.3%) receive non-cashassistance from the non-resident parent compared to 13.2 percent of custodialparents with court-ordered awards.

Compliance with child support orders is also higher among parents withvoluntary as opposed to court-ordered agreements (see Table 6).  Custodialparents with voluntary agreements received 73 percent of what they were owed,whereas custodial parents with court-ordered agreements received 62 percent ofwhat they were owed.

#### Visitation Provisions

*How many divorced parents in the U.S. do not have visitation provisionsin their child support and custody agreements?*

*Do custodial parents with sole custody, but no visitation provisiondiffer in their demographic characteristics from those with sole custody withvisitation provisions?*

*Is the lack of an explicit visitation provision associated with lesseconomic well-being for the family in which the child primarily resides?*

*Is there less frequent contact between the non-residential parent andthe child in sole custody arrangements with no visitation provisions than insole custody arrangements with explicit visitation provisions?*

*Is the lack of an explicit visitation provision associated with paymentof less child support by the non-residential parent than sole custody withvisitation provisions?*

Visitation may or may not be specified in a child support agreement.  Thelack of explicit visitation arrangements, however, does not mean that visitationdoes not occur or is discouraged, though it may.  Agreements may state thatvisitation will occur at the "mutual convenience" of the two parentsor use terms such as "usual and customary visitation."  Such phrases,because they do not lay out a detailed visitation plan, probably are notconsidered a visitation arrangement by many respondents.  Regardless of the typeof custody arrangement, the majority of parents report that they do have sometype of visitation provision in their agreement.  Nearly two-thirds (64.6%) oralmost 4 million custodial parents report that they have visitation provisionsin their agreements ( see Figure 4).  The proportion is very similar for thosewith joint custody and those with sole custody arrangements, 66.5 percent and65.6 percent, respectively.  It is not clear, however, how custodial parentswith joint legal and physical custody arrangements interpreted the question onvisitation provisions.  Some parents may have considered arrangements made forwhen the child or children would live with the other parent as a visitationprovision, while others may not have considered such arrangements as avisitation provision.  Even so, the responses to the question on visitationindicate that approximately 2.2 million persons have no explicit visitationprovision in their written child support agreements.

As we saw above, persons with joint custody differ in several respects fromthose with sole custody.  The demographic characteristics of custodial parentswith sole custody, but no visitation provisions have characteristics that couldmake them more vulnerable to economic difficulties.  For example, 1.2 percent ofcustodial parents with joint custody are never married, compared to 8.3 percentof those with sole custody with visitation provisions, and 21.4 percent of thosewith sole custody without visitation provisions.  Similarly, 12.2 percent ofthose with joint custody reported that they had not graduated from high school,compared to 15.3 percent of custodial parents with sole custody with visitation,and 19.6 percent with sole custody, but no visitation provision.   

The same pattern holds true for the economic well-being of the families: those with sole custody, but no visitation provision fare less well than thosewith joint custody or those with sole custody with visitation (see Table 2). They are more likely than the other two to experience poverty in the previousyear:  26.5 percent of persons with joint custody, 32.8 percent of those withsole custody with visitation, and 46.9 percent of those with sole custodywithout visitation reported experiencing one or more months of poverty in theprevious year.  They are also more likely to report receiving AFDC in theprevious year: 7.2 percent of those with joint custody, 15.1 percent of thosewith sole custody with visitation, and 28.4 percent of those with sole custodywithout visitation reported receiving AFDC for one or more months in theprevious year.

Custodial parents with sole custody arrangements which do not specifyvisitation are less likely than those with sole custody with visitation to saythat the non-residential parent had some contact with the children in theprevious year, 54.3 percent versus 73.3 percent (see Table 4).  However,custodial parents with joint custody arrangements are the most likely to reportthat some visits occurred:  81.6 percent.  Among those reporting that somecontact took place, parents with sole custody with no visitation report lesscontact than those with sole custody with visitation or with joint custodyarrangements.  The mean days of contact reported by parents with sole custodyarrangements with no visitation provisions was 27.8 days compared to 32.4 daysfor those with sole custody with visitation provision, and 47.3 days for thosewith joint custody arrangements.  The median days of contact tell a similarstory:  1 day of contact for those with sole custody and no visitation, 12 daysfor those with sole custody with visitation provisions, and 30 days for thosewith joint custody.  

Like contact, among those who report receiving any child support, the meanand median amounts received by custodial parents with sole custody with novisitation provisions is less than reported by custodial parents with jointarrangements or with sole custody arrangements with visitation provisions (seeTable 2).  The mean amount of child support received in the previous year byparents with sole custody with no visitation is $2101, compared to $3,661 forthose with joint custody, and $2639 for those with sole custody with visitation. The median amounts received are $1512 for parents with sole custody with novisitation provision, $1980 for parents with sole custody with visitationprovisions, and $3000 for persons with joint custody arrangements.

Compliance with child support orders is also lower among parents with solecustody arrangements with no visitation provisions compared to parents with solecustody with visitation and to parents with joint custody arrangements. Custodial parents in sole custody arrangements with no visitation provisionreceived 57 percent of what was owed to them compared to 65 percent received byparents with sole custody arrangements with visitation, and 76 percent receivedby parents with joint custody arrangements.

#### Paternal Involvement

*How often do non-residential fathers visit their children in the courseof a year?*

*Does the amount of visitation by the non-residential father differ bythe custodial mother's demographic characteristic?*

*Does the amount of visitation by the non-residential father differ bythe type of custody arrangement or whether it was arrived at voluntarily orcourt-ordered?*

*What factors are related to high levels of visits?  Conversely, whatfactors are related to low levels of visits?*

*Is payment of more child support by non-residential parents in one yearpredictive of more frequent contact with their children in the following year?*

*How is years elapsed since an agreement is reached related to paternalinvolvement?*

*Does remarriage of the mother affect how often the father visits?*

- H1 Consistent with previous studies, visits by the father will be higher ifthe mother was ever married, if she is more educated, and if the children areyounger.
- H2 Fathers with joint physical custody will have more contact with theirchildren than fathers with other types of arrangements.  Fathers will have theleast contact with their children if the mother has sole custody.
- H3 Involvement will be higher among fathers whose custody arrangement wasarrived at voluntarily compared to fathers whose arrangement was court-ordered.

In the 1990 and 1991 panels of SIPP, questions about contact with thenon-residential parent were only asked of persons with formal writtenagreements.  The 1992 panel of SIPP, not fully available during the time of thisstudy, obtains information on contact from parents without written agreements aswell. 

According to data from the 1990 panel of SIPP, a substantial proportion offathers (31.7%) have not spent time with their children in the previous 12months, according to the custodial mothers (see Table 8).  However,approximately one-quarter (23.8%) of non-resident fathers see their children atleast once a week.  The mean number of days of contact reported by custodialmothers is 33 days in the previous year, with a median of 12 days.  

Frequency of contact varies by the background characteristics of thecustodial mother.  Mothers who had not married the non-resident father are lesslikely than other mothers to report that the non-resident father spent time withtheir children in the previous year (see Table 9).  In fact, 40.6 percent ofnever married mothers and 46.7 percent of mothers who are currently in theirfirst marriage report that the non-resident father did not visit their childrenat all in the previous year, compared to 35 percent of remarried mothers and26.7 percent of currently divorced mothers. 

Contact with the non-resident father is more likely to occur if thecustodial mother is more educated:  82 percent of those who are college graduatereport that the father had some contact in the previous year compared to 57.5percent of those with less than a high school education.

Frequency of contact with the father also varies by the characteristics ofthe custody and child support agreements ( see Figure 5).  Contact is morefrequent, at least in sole custody arrangements, when visitation provisions arespecified in the agreement than when they are not (see Table 8).  Contact isalso more frequent when child support agreements are reached voluntarily asopposed to being court-ordered.

Table 8

Table 9 p. 1

Table 9 p. 2

Regression models were estimated to determine what factors are related tohigh or low levels of visits, controlling for the background characteristics ofthe custodial mother, characteristics of the child support agreements, previouscontact, and payment of child support.  As with the bivariate relationsdescribed above, these models were restricted to custodial mothers with writtenchild support agreements.  For these models, the dependent variable was thenatural log of days visited + 1.  Days of contact, like other variables thatcount things, is skewed to the right, which means that most of the cases areclustered towards the lower end of end of the range with some outliers to theright.  Transforming the data with a natural log serves to spread out the dataat the lower end and pull in the data on the right.  Essentially, thetransformation is "straightening out" the variable so it is moresuitable for use in a regression analysis.  The number of days of visitsequivalent to the log days are shown below:

| **Natural Log Transformation** |
|--------------------------------|
| *Ln (Days + 1)*                | *Days of Visitation* |
| 0

1

2

3

4

5

5.9          | None

1.7

6.4

19.1

53.6

147.4

365 |

Five models were estimated.  The first regressed the natural log of days ona set of background characteristics including years elapsed since the agreementwas made; where the non-resident father lives; the custodial mother's education,race/ethnicity, age, and marital status; the number of children covered by theaward, and the age of the  youngest child in the custodial mother's household. For the second model, these same background characteristics were entered plusinformation on the custody agreement and how it was reached.  The third addedinformation on the non-residential father's compliance with the child supportorder in the year preceding wave 3.  The fourth model added information onprevious contact, but not on compliance with the child support order.   And thefifth included all the previous variables from the other models.  The results ofthese models are shown in Table 10.

Table 10 p. 1

Table 10 p. 2

Below the relationships that were found in the regression models aresummarized.

***What Factors Predict to Parental Contact?***

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreements (negativelyrelated, e.g., parents with court-ordered agreements as opposed to voluntaryagreements are less likely to have contact with their children)*

*Compliance with child support order in previous year (positivelyrelated)*

*Sole custody without visitation provisions (negatively related)*

*Other parent lives in a different state, or in a different city orcounty (negatively related)*

*Years elapsed since support agreement (negatively related)*

*Parent education level (curvilinear relationship)*

*Youngest child is a preschooler (ages 3-5) (positively related)*

*Parents never married (negatively related)*

***Factors That Might Be Expected to Predict, But Do Not***

*Joint legal custody (i.e., over sole custody with visitation provisions)*

*Joint legal and physical custody (i.e., over sole custody withvisitation provisions)*

*Mother has remarried*

Many of the relationships observed at the bivariate level continued to besignificant in the multivariate models, though the addition of previous contactremoved some of the observed associations.  For models that contained thedemographic, custody, and child support variables, having a court-orderedagreement, lacking a visitation provision, living in a different state orcounty, and being a never married custodial parent were all associated withlower contact even after controlling for the other variables.   Variables thatcontinued to be predictive of lower contact even after controlling for previouscontact and child support were having a court-ordered agreement, sole custodywithout visitation, and being never married.  There appears to be a curvilinearrelationship between education of the custodial parent and contact.  Custodialparents with high school degrees reported higher contact compared to custodialparents with some college experience.  There was no significant differencebetween those with less than a high school education, those with some collegeexperience, and college graduates in the amount of contact once the othervariables were entered into the model.  As compliance with the child supportorder in the year prior to wave 3 increased, so did the amount of contact in theyear following Wave 3 even after controlling for all the other variables.  

Although joint custody was expected to be associated with greater contact,neither joint legal only nor joint legal and physical custody arrangements wereassociated with paternal contact once the other variables were entered into themodel.  As with the question on whether an agreement contained visitationprovisions, the question on contact with the non-resident parent may bedifficult to interpret for parents with joint legal and physical custodyarrangements.  For example, some parents in such arrangements may exclude fromtheir calculation of contact times when the child or children are actuallyliving with the other parent, while other parents may include such times intheir estimate of frequency of contact.  

#### Separated Parents Residing in Different Cities or States

*For how many disrupted families in the U.S. does the non-residentialparent live in a different city or county, or in a different state than theparent with whom the children primarily reside?*

*Is having the non-residential parent living in another city or county oranother state associated with less frequent contact between the non-residentialparent and the children?*

*Is having the non-residential parent living in another city or county oranother state associated with payment of less child support by thenon-residential parent?*

- H1 Non-resident parents who live in the same state will be more likely tovisit their children and pay child support than parents that live in a differentstate.

Of the 12.4 million custodial parents, 4.7 million (37.7%) state that thenon-residential parent lives in the same city or county as they do ( see Figure6).  An additional, 2.5 million (19.9%) report that the non-residential parentlives in the same state, though not in the same city or county and 2.4 million(19.4%) say that the non-resident parent lives in a different state. Approximately 40,000 report that the non-resident parent is no longer alive(.3%) and 152 thousand (1.2%) say the non-residential parent lives some otherplace.  Disturbingly, an estimated 2.7 million (21.4%) custodial parents havemissing information on this question.  Reasons for having missing informationinclude not knowing the whereabouts of the non-resident parent or refusing toanswer the question.  Given that nearly 2 million custodial parents who say thatthe non-resident parent is alive report that "there is no way of contactingthe other parent," it is likely many do not know the whereabouts of thenon-resident parent. 

As others have found, as distance increases, contact decreases.  Theproportion of non-residential parents who had any visits with their children inthe previous year was 75.2 percent for those living in the same city or county,69.9 percent for those living in the same state, and 59.8 percent for thoseliving in a different state ( see Figure 7).  The mean days of contact alsodecreases as distance increases.  The biggest change occurs as the non-residentparent moves out of the same city or county as the child.  Though parents livingin the same state see their children more than those living in a differentstate, the difference in mean days of contact is not large.  The mean days ofcontact by the non-residential parent was 45 days for parents living in the samecity or county, 27 days for parents living in a different county or city, butthe same state, and 24 days for parents living in a different state.      

As we saw in the multiple regression analyses shown in Table 10, theimportance of the whereabouts of the non-resident father on contact with thechildren remains even after controlling for race and ethnicity, education, age,and marital status of the custodial parent and years elapsed since the agreementwas formed.  Not surprisingly, the influence of how far away the non-residentparent lives on contact weakens once the frequency of previous contact is addedinto the model.

Payment of child support is more likely to occur if the non-resident parentlives nearby.  Among custodial parents with written awards, 83.7 percent reportreceiving at least some child support if the non-resident parent lives in thesame city or county ( see Figure 8).  The proportion drops to 77.1 percent whoreport receiving some child support if the non-resident parent lives in the samestate, but in a different city or county.  The proportion drops even further to69.3 percent who report receiving some child support if the non-resident parentlives in a different state.  As we will see below, this relationship between howfar away the non-resident parent lives and payment of child support disappearsonce demographic, custody, and contact information are controlled for inmultiple regression models.  This result should not be surprising.   Asnon-resident parents live further away from their children, the difficulties ofmaking travel arrangements to visit, the costs associated with traveling, andthe time needed to make visits all place constraints on the ability ofnon-resident parents to see their children.  However, none of these constraintsexist for mailing a child support payment.  Thus, one would expect that distancewould have a weaker influence on payment than on visitation.  There might besome effect due to greater difficulty of enforcing child support complianceacross state boundaries, however.  Apparently this effect is not substantial, atleast in the bivariate relationships.

#### Child Support

*How much money do non-residential parents in the U.S. pay for thesupport of their children?*

*What are the factors that lead to greater or lesser payment amounts?*

*What are the factors that are associated with compliance with childsupport orders?*

*Is payment of more child support by non-residential parents associatedwith greater well-being for the family in which the child primarily resides?*

- H1 As others have found, many non-residential parents will pay nothingtowards the support of their children and many others will pay only part of whatthey owe.
- H2 Custodial parents who are more educated and who are older will be morelikely to receive any child support and to receive the full amount that is duecompared to other custodial parents.
- H3 Families who receive child support will experience greater economicwell-being than those who do not receive child support.

The SIPP only asked for amounts of child support received for custodialparents who reported that they had a written child support award and thatsupport was due in the past year.  According to these parents, half (50.6%) ofthe non-resident parents paid the full amount of child support that they owed inthe previous year ( see Figure 9).  Just over a quarter (27.1%) paid part of whatthey owed.  And, just under a quarter (22.3%) paid nothing at all even thoughthey owed child support.  The amounts that were paid, however, were not large. The median amount of child support paid by non-resident parents who paid thefull amount owed was $2600, while the median amount for those who made partialpayments was $1000.  As we shall see later, nearly half of all custodial parentsnever establish child support awards and the vast majority of those who do notestablish awards receive no assistance from the non-resident parent.

Contrary to our expectation, age of the custodial parent had very littleassociation with the receipt of child support (see Table 11).  However, as weexpected, custodial parents with college educations were more likely to receivechild support (84.6%) than were custodial parents with less than a high schooleducation (73.2%) or than those with just a high school education (77.6%).  Theywere also more likely to receive child support than custodial parents who hadsome college experience (77.8%).  Parents who were college graduates were alsothe most likely to receive the full amount that they were owed in the previousyear.  Sixty-one percent of college graduates received the full amount owedcompared with 46.3% of those with less than a high school education, 49.2percent of those who were high school graduates, and 50.9% of those with somecollege experience.

Compliance with child support orders varies by characteristics of thecustodial parent.  Custodial parents with written child support agreements whowere owed child support in the preceding year received about 65 percent of whatthey were owed ( see Figure 10a).  Custodial parents who were in their firstmarriage received about 70 percent of what they were owed, while never marriedparents with written agreements received about 60 percent of what they wereowed.  College graduates were the most likely to experience high compliance: they received approximately 78 percent of the child support monies that theywere owed in the previous year. 

Table 11 p. 1

Table 11 p. 2

Compliance with child support orders also varies somewhat by thecharacteristics of custody and child support agreements and where thenon-resident parent lives ( see Figure 10b).  Compliance with child supportorders among persons with joint custody arrangements is higher when thearrangement is joint legal custody as opposed to joint legal and physical (78%of what is owed is received compared to 71%).  However, compliance is higher ineither kind of joint custody arrangement compared to sole custody arrangementswith visitation provisions (65% of what is owed is received) or to sole custodyarrangements with no visitation provisions (57% of what is owed is received). Compliance is also higher if the agreement was reached voluntarily as opposed tobeing court-ordered (73% of what is owed is received compared to 62%).

As we expected, custodial parents who received the full amount due werefinancially more secure than those who received only partial payments and thanthose who received no child support (See Table 12).  Just under one-third(31.3%) of custodial parents who received the full amount of child support dueexperienced one or more months of poverty the previous year compared to 41.7% ofthose who received only part of what was due, and 40.8 percent of those whoreceived none of what was due.  Custodial parents receiving the full amount ofchild support due were also less likely to have received AFDC in the previousyear.  Approximately 13 percent of custodial parents receiving the full amountof child support owed received AFDC the previous year compared to 19 percent ofthose receiving partial payments and 27 percent of those receiving none of whatwas owed them.

Regression models were used to examine which factors are predictive of childsupport and to examine the interrelationship between visitation and payment ofchild support.  Three different dependent variables were used.  The first waswhether the non-residential father paid any child support in the year prior toWave 6 of the survey.  The second was the total number of dollars paid in theyear prior to Wave 6 by fathers who paid any support during that year.  Thethird was the ratio of the actual dollars paid to the amount that the father wassupposed to pay.  The third dependent variable can be viewed as measuring theextent to which non-resident fathers complied with the terms of the childsupport agreements.  As with contact, five models were estimated for each ofthese dependent variables.  The first model contained a set of backgroundvariables including years elapsed since the agreement was made; where thenon-resident father lives;  the custodial mother's education, race/ethnicity,age and marital status; the number of children covered by the award; and the ageof the youngest child in the custodial mother's household.  The second modelcontained these background characteristics plus information on the custodyarrangement and how the child support agreement was reached.  The third modeladded information on previous contact.  The fourth model added information onprevious child support paid (or extent of compliance with the child supportaward).  And the fifth model contained all the predictor variables contained inthe previous models.  Table 13 shows the results of these models for any childsupport paid (as opposed to none).  Table 14A shows the results for the dollaramount of child support paid by the father in the previous year and Table 14Bshows the models predicting to the ratio of amount paid to amount due. 

Table 12

In each case, the strongest predictor of child support was previous childsupport, i.e., the payment behavior of the father in the year prior to Wave 3 ofthe SIPP.  This was so whether the dependent variable was any payment, amountpaid, or degree of compliance with child support order.  The addition of theprior support term tended to overwhelm the other predictors, presumably becausethose same factors worked to shape that prior support behavior as well.  Hence,prior support captured and summarized the effects of several of the independentvariables.  When prior support was omitted from the equation, here are thefactors that predicted to whether or not the father paid any support:

***Factors That Predict to Payment of Any Child Support(Other than prior support)***

*Years elapsed since support agreement established (negatively related)*

*Frequency of visitation in previous year (positively related)*

*Mother's education level (positively related)*

*Mother currently married (positively related)*

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreement (negativelyrelated)*

***Factors that Approach Significance***

*× Joint physical and legal custody arrangement (positivelyrelated)*

*× Non-residential parent lives in different state (negativelyrelated)*

Table 13 p. 1

Table 13 p. 2

Table 14a p.1

Table 14a p. 2

Table 14b p. 1

Table 14b p. 2

***Factors That Might Be Expected to Predict, But Do Not***

*Sole custody without visitation*

*Joint legal custody*

*Parents never married*

*Mother's age*

Although frequency of visitation was positively associated with paying somechild support, the association was considerably weakened when prior support wasincluded in the model.  Furthermore, the addition of visitation frequency to amodel that already contained prior support did not enhance the overallpredictive power of the model.

Here are the factors that were and were not associated with the amount ofchild support paid by those fathers who paid any (again, leaving out priorsupport, which tended to be the strongest predictor):

***Factors That Predict To Amount of Child Support PaidBy Those Who Paid Any***

***(Other than prior amount paid)***

*Number of children covered by agreement (positively related)*

*Mother's education level (positively related)*

*Years elapsed since support agreement (negatively related)*

*Mother is young (under 35 years of age versus age 35 or older)(negatively related, e.g., mothers under 35 receive less child support thanmothers 35 years of age and older)*

*Joint legal custody arrangement (positively related)*

*African-American family (negatively related)*

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreement (negativelyrelated)*

***Factors that Approach Significance***

*Youngest child is under 3*

***Factors That Might Be Expected To Predict, But Do Not***

*Parents never married*

*Sole custody without visitation*

*Joint legal and physical custody*

*Non-residential parent lives in different state*

*Frequency of visitation in previous year*

Note that several factors were significant as predictors of amount paid thatwere not significant with some payment versus none.  These were the number ofchildren covered in the agreement, and the mother's age and race.  These seemrelevant to the size of the award and the father's financial ability to pay(assuming that younger mothers tend to have been married to younger fathers, andthat racial minority mothers usually had mates who were also black).  On theother hand, the fact that the mother was currently (re)married, which wasrelated to the fact of child support payment, was not related to the amount ofthat payment.

Here are the factors that were or were not associated with the ratio of theamount paid to the amount of child support owed under the agreement:

### Factors That Predict Ratio of Child Support Paid to Amount Owed

### (Other than prior compliance ratio)

*Years elapsed since support agreement (negatively related)*

*Frequency of visitation in previous year (positively related)*

*Mother's education level (positively related)*

*Mother is young (under 35) (negatively related)*

*Mother currently married (positively related)*

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreement (negativelyrelated)*

*Joint custody arrangement (positively related)*

*Child is under 3 or 18 and over (negatively related)*

### Factors that Approach Significance

*African-American family (negatively related)*

*Factors That Might Be Expected To Predict, But Do Not*

*Sole custody without visitation*

*Parents never married*

Many of the factors that predicted to either the fact or the amount of childsupport payment also predicted to the degree of compliance with the childsupport award.  A notable exception was the number of children covered by theaward, which predicted to the amount of child support paid, but not to the factof payment or to the degree of compliance.  Another important exception is theassociation between paternal contact and the payment of child support.  Ascontact with the father increased in the previous year, the likelihood that anychild support would be paid and the degree of compliance with child supportawards also increased.  The amount of contact with the father in the previousyear, however, had no association with the dollar amount paid by fathers whowere already paying child support.  These results highlight the importance oftreating payment of any child support, compliance, and dollar amount paid asdistinct factors. 

Although we expected that being never married would be negatively associatedwith compliance and with dollar amount paid, it was not significantly differentfrom being separated or divorced in any of the models.  Because these modelswere restricted to women with written agreements, it may be that the nevermarried with written agreements are different from never married women withoutwritten agreements and are more similar to divorced or separated women.  Weexplore this possibility later in the chapter.

From the four sets of regression equations discussed thus far, somepreliminary conclusions about the interrelationship of visitation and childsupport can be drawn.  First, past history of contact and past history ofpayment are the strongest predictors of current contact and current payment ofchild support.  Fathers who visit and who have paid child support in theprevious year, tend to do so in the current year.  

Second, the models suggest that, at least in the short run, payment of childsupport has a greater influence on contact than contact has on payment of childsupport.  In the models predicting to visitation, the degree of compliance withthe child support order in the previous year remains a significant predictor ofvisitation even after controlling for past history of visitation.  On the otherhand, in the models predicting to child support, once a father's previoushistory of payment of child support is entered into the model, the frequency ofcontact in the previous year has no influence on compliance with child supportorders or the dollar amount of child support paid, and only a marginal influenceon whether any child support is paid at all.  The fact that contact appears tohave a weaker influence on payment of child support than child support has oncontact suggests that efforts to increase contact will not necessarily increasecompliance with child support orders or the amount of child support paid, thoughit may have a small influence on whether any child support is paid at all. However, efforts to ensure compliance with child support orders could lead tomore contact.  More studies need to be conducted to determine whether thispattern of associations is long-term.  We also need studies on how the specificprovisions of visitation agreements might affect payment and compliance.  TheSIPP data source provides us with the information on award amounts due and paid,but there is no information on the specific custody and visitation arrangements.

### Custodial Fathers/Non-Residential Mothers

*How do the demographic characteristics of custodial fathers differ fromthose of custodial mothers?*

*What are the economic and living conditions of custodial fatherhouseholds?*

*How often do non-residential mothers visit their children?*

*How regularly do non-residential mothers pay child support?*

- H1 Custodial fathers will tend to be older and better educated thancustodial mothers.
- H2 Custodial fathers will be less likely than custodial mothers toexperience economic difficulties.
- H3 Non-residential mothers will be more likely to visit their children thannon-residential fathers.
- H4 A smaller proportion of non-residential mothers will be obliged to paychild support and the amounts they pay will be smaller than non-residentialfathers.  

Custodial fathers represent a small, but growing proportion of custodialparents.  As noted earlier, there are an estimated 1.5 million custodial fathersrepresenting 12 percent of all custodial parents.  Custodial fathers aredistinctively different from custodial mothers (see Table 15).  A greaterproportion of them had once been married to the non-resident parent compared tocustodial mothers (86.4% versus 67.2%).  They are also much more likely to havegraduated from college than custodial mothers (16.4% versus 9.6%).  They areolder on average than custodial mothers:  49.1 percent are aged 35-44 and 23.1percent are 45 or older compared to 36.6 percent of custodial mothers who areaged 35-44 and 9.2 percent who are 45 or older.  They are more likely to benon-Hispanic whites and less likely to be non-Hispanic blacks than custodialmothers.  Nearly 80 percent are non-Hispanic whites compared to 61 percent ofcustodial mothers.  Only 10 percent are non-Hispanic blacks compared to 25percent of custodial mothers.  The youngest child in their households are alsoolder, on average, than the young children in custodial mother households.  In51.1 percent of custodial father households, the youngest child is age 12 orolder compared to only 28.4 percent in custodial mother households.

Table 15

Not surprisingly, custodial father households are more advantagedeconomically than custodial mother households (see Table 16).  They are lesslikely to have experienced poverty in the previous year than custodial motherhouseholds (26.5% versus 45.2%).  They are also less likely to have receivedAFDC in the previous year than custodial mothers (5.2% versus 25.7%).  They aremore likely to own their own homes (66.0% versus 49.4%) and to have highermedian family incomes ($30,023 versus $21,440) than custodial mothers.

As shown in Table 17, a smaller proportion of non-residential mothers weresupposed to pay child support in the previous year compared to non-residentialfathers (71.2% versus 93.4%).  Given the better financial position of custodialfathers, agreements may be less likely to require the payment of child supportpayments from mothers.  The median amounts paid by non-resident mothers is lessthan non-resident fathers ($1800 versus $2100).  Non-residential mothers andfathers are about equally likely, however, to make their payments regularly allthe time (50.1% of mothers and 48.8% of fathers do so).  A similar proportionalso are never regular in paying their child support (25.8% of mothers and 24.6%of non-resident fathers).  Non-resident mothers appear somewhat more likely tomake their payments within 30 days of the due date all or most of the time(68.7% for mothers versus 61.5% for fathers).

According to the reports of custodial parents, non-resident mothers are morelikely to visit their children and to see them more often than non-residentfathers ( see Figure 11).  Only 16 percent of non-resident mothers had notvisited their children in the previous year compared to 32 percent ofnon-resident fathers.  Moreover, 35 percent of non-resident mothers were able tosee their children once a week or more often compared to only 24 percent ofnon-resident fathers.  The mean days of contact by  non-resident mothers in theprevious year was 52 days compared to 33 days by non-resident fathers.  Themedian days of contact by non-resident mothers was 19 days compared to 12 daysby non-resident fathers.

Table 16

Table 17

### Custodial Parents Without Child Support Awards

*How many custodial parents do not have child support awards?*

*How do custodial parents without awards differ from parents who haveawards?*

*To what extent do custodial parents without awards receive either cashor in-kind services from their former partners?*

*How do custodial parents without awards who receive assistance fromtheir former partners differ from those who receive no assistance?*

- H1 Parents without awards will be more likely to be never married, to havelower educations, to be black or Hispanic, and to have not worked in theprevious year.
- H2 Parents without awards will be more likely to have been in poverty atleast part of the time in the previous year, to have received AFDC at some pointin the previous year, and to have lower incomes than custodial parents who havehad awards.  They will also be more likely to live in unsafe neighborhoods, andto experience difficulties meeting basic needs.
- H3 Although some parents without awards will report receiving support fromtheir former partners in the form of cash or services, the majority will reportreceiving no support.
- H4 Among custodial parents with no child support agreement, non-residentparents will be more likely to make some child support payments or providenon-cash items or services if the parent lives in the same state.

Just over half of custodial parents (54.4% or 6.7 million) have had a childsupport agreement at some point in time.  A large minority, 45.6 percent or 5.7million, have never had a child support agreement of any type.

Parents who have never established child support awards differ in manyrespects from parents who have ever had a child support award.  Parents withoutawards are much more likely not to have been married to their children's otherparent.  Nearly 48 percent of custodial parents without awards report that theyhave never been married or that they are currently in their first marriage,which suggests that they have children from a non-marital union.  Amongcustodial parents who have ever had an award, only 16 percent report that theyhave never been married or that they are currently in their first marriage.

Parents without awards tend to have less education, to be  younger, and tohave not been employed at all in the previous year compared to parents who haveever had an award ( see Figure 12).   They are also more likely to be black orHispanic than custodial parents with awards.  

Given the differences in demographic characteristics, it should be expectedthat there will be differences in the economic situation of custodial parentswith and without awards.  As can be seen in  Figure 13, this is the case. Custodial parents without awards are much more likely to have experienced one ormore months of poverty in the previous year than custodial parents with awards,51.8 percent versus 35.5 percent.  They are also more likely to have receivedAFDC for one or more months in the previous year, 30.8 percent compared to 16.9percent.  Their family incomes are also lower.  The median family income forcustodial parents without a child support award was $18,465 compared to $25,583for custodial parents with awards.

Custodial parents without awards also appear to experience less support andmore change in their lives.  Nearly 20 percent of custodial parents withoutawards reported that they had moved into their current home in the past yearcompared with 15 percent of custodial parents with awards.  Although mostcustodial parents report that they can call on family or friends living nearbyto help them, those without awards are less likely to give this response.Sixty-two percent of custodial parents without awards said that they couldobtain help from family when in need compared to 70 percent of custodial parentswith awards.  Similarly, 56 percent of custodial parents without awards saidthat they could receive assistance from friends compared to 63 percent ofcustodial parents with awards. 

Those without awards are less likely to report owning their own homes, 44.2percent versus 57.4 percent.  They are also more likely to report that they lackat least one essential consumer durable such as a refrigerator, stove, ortelephone:  16.4 percent versus 10 percent.   

The unweighted sample size for custodial parents with a non-writtenagreement was less than 200, but a comparison (not shown) of them and custodialparents with written agreements indicates that the two groups have similardemographic and economic characteristics.

Some custodial parents without awards, report receiving child support ornon-cash items or services from the non-resident parent.  Of the 6.2 millioncustodial parents without awards, 849 thousand or 13.6 percent report that thenon-resident parent provided child support or non-cash assistance in theprevious year.  The receipt of such assistance, like those with writtenagreements, is associated with whether the non-resident parent lives nearby ornot:  13.1 percent of custodial parents without an award state that thenon-resident parent provided some child support or non-cash items or services ifthe non-resident parent lived in the same city or county, compared to 10.1percent if the parent lived in the same state, and 3.8 percent if the parentlived in a different state.

Custodial parents without awards who receive some assistance are less likelyto be never married than those who receive no assistance (26.6% versus 34.8%). They are also more likely to have some college experience or to have graduatedfrom college than those who receive no assistance (40.4% versus 32.0%).  Theiryoungest child is also more likely to be under six than those who do not receivesupport (52.0% versus 43.0%).  The youngest child is not necessarily the childof the non-resident parent, though it may be.

Not surprisingly, custodial parents without awards who receive someassistance from the non-resident parent are less likely than those who receiveno assistance to experience poverty in the previous year (44.2% versus 51.2%) orto have received AFDC in the previous year (20.9% versus 30.6%).  They are alsosomewhat more likely to own their own homes (49.2% versus 44.6%).   They areless likely to have moved into their homes in the last year (14.7% versus19.2%).

### Separated Parents Who Have Never Been Married to EachOther

*What proportion of custodial parents who were not married to theirchildren's other parent report having a child support award?*

*How do custodial parents who have not married their former partner, butestablish awards differ from those who do not establish awards?*

- H1 The majority of custodial parents who have not been married to theirformer partners will not establish child support awards.
- H2 Such parents who do establish awards will tend to be more educated, tobe currently married, and to have worked in the previous year.

Most custodial parents were at one time married to their child(ren)'s otherparent, though 8.2 percent report that they are in their first marriage,suggesting that the children are from an earlier unmarried union, and 22.2percent report that they have never been married.  Thus approximately 3.8million custodial parents have children from non-marital unions with a parentliving elsewhere.  

Ninety-five percent of custodial parents who had not been married to theirformer partner are women.  In contrast, approximately 85 percent of custodialparents who had once been married to their former partner are women.  In theremainder of this section, we restrict our attention to custodial mothers whohad not married their former partner. 

Of the 3.6 million custodial mothers who had never married their formerpartner, 30.3 percent have ever established a child support award either writtenor unwritten.  One-quarter of these 3.6 million women had established writtenagreements.  

Because of the relatively small sample size of women who never married thenon-resident parent who ever established awards (n=272), a detailed profile oftheir demographic characteristics is not possible.  However, a fewgeneralizations about differences between those who have ever had an award andthose who have never had an award are possible.  Non-Hispanic whites and womenwith at least a high school education are more likely to establish awards thanare blacks, Hispanics, or women with less than a high school education, thoughthe differences are often not large.  Thirty-six percent of non-Hispanic whitewomen who had not married the non-resident father were able to establish awardscompared to 25.8 percent of black women who had not married the non-residentfather.  Approximately one-third of women with at least a high school educationwere able to establish awards compared to 26.3 percent of women with less than ahigh school education.  Currently married mothers were slightly more likely tohave established an award than never married mothers (32.9% versus 29.4%), whichmay reflect more about unmeasured characteristics of the women than about thesalutary influences of marriage.  A mother's age had almost no association withestablishing an award, though women aged 25-34 appeared a bit more likely tohave ever had an award compared to women who were younger or who were older. Interestingly, women who had not worked at all in the previous year, but who hadlooked for work (n=75) were more likely to have ever established awards thanwomen who had worked or than women who hadn't worked and who hadn't looked forwork.  Approximately 45% of women who had looked for work had ever establishedawards compared to about 30 percent of those who worked and 27 percent of thosewho didn't work and didn't look for work.  Because of the small sample size, nottoo much emphasis should be put on this result. 

### Children's Well-Being

*Do custody, child support payments, and paternal involvement affectchildren's living conditions, economic circumstances, educational attainment,and overall health.*

*What is the relationship between payment of child support and theeconomic dependency of children's families as measured by receipt of AFDC?*

- H1 Children will fare the best if they are under a joint physical or legalcustody arrangement, an arrangement that was arrived at voluntarily, and if thefather maintains regular contact with the child.  Children will fare the worstif the custody arrangements were court-ordered and the father maintains littleor no contact.
- H2 Consistent with other studies, children will fare better economically iftheir fathers pay child support and maintain contact with them.

Earlier we saw that a family's living conditions and economic well-beingvaried by the type of custody arrangement and by whether the child supportagreement was court-ordered or voluntary.   Figures 14 and  15 summarize some ofthe observed associations for two measures of living conditions:  (1) whetherthe family did not pay the full amount of their utility bills for one or moremonths in the previous year and (2) whether the family owns a personal computer. Inability to regularly pay monthly utility bills is an indicator of theeconomic uncertainty faced by households.  Economic concerns contribute to worryand stress experienced by custodial parents, which, in turn, can be detrimentalto children's well-being (Elder et al., 1995).  Ownership of a personal computeris to a large extent a reflection of a family's economic situation, but it isalso an indicator of the educational environment of children's households.    

As hypothesized, families with joint custody agreements and families withcontact with the non-resident parent are less likely to experience economicuncertainty and are more likely to own a computer than are families with solecustody arrangements or those with no contact with the non-resident parent. Award status has no association with a family's economic uncertainty ( Figure14),  but families who have ever had a written award are more likely than thosewho have not to own a personal computer ( Figure 15).  Such a pattern makes sensein that households with awards tend to have higher incomes and will, therefore,be better able to pay for luxuries such as a personal computer.  Higher incomes,however, are not necessarily linked with how well families are able to budgettheir incomes.  Similarly, receipt of child support is linked to the inabilityto pay utility bills regularly, but has no association with ownership of apersonal computer.  It is precisely the households which experience the greatestuncertainty in their monthly budgets (those who receive only partial payments),who are most likely not to have paid the full amount of their utility bills inone or more months in the previous year.  No matter what a family's incomelevel, fluctuations in monthly income make it more difficult to regularly meetbasic living expenses.  Whether one receives the full amount, partial amount, orno payment, however, is different from the size of one's income and therefore isnot linked to ownership of a personal computer.  

Children's living conditions are not the only aspects of children's livesthat are affected by characteristics of child support agreements, custodyarrangements, and visitation.  As  Figures 16 and  17 show, many of these factorsare also related to children's likelihood of attending college (among 19-20 yearolds) and health (among children aged 15 and older)(4).  Approximately 56percent of 19-20 year olds whose parents had a written custody agreement havehad college experience compared to 27 percent of those whose parents have neverhad a child support award.  Children whose parents had a written award are alsosomewhat more likely to be described as being in excellent health with nodisabilities than children whose parents had no award (48.5% versus 41.7%). 

Although the cases become small, having a joint custody arrangement orhaving a voluntary child support agreement appears to substantially increase thechances that a 19-20 year old will have some college experience.  Approximately75 percent of 19-20 year olds whose parents had a joint custody arrangement andmore than 70 percent whose parents had a voluntary child support agreements hadsome college experience compared to 55.8 percent of all youth covered by awritten agreement.  Attendance at college also increases if the full amount ofchild support was paid compared to only part or none.  Contact with thenon-resident father, however, has no association with college attendance.

Joint custody arrangements and voluntary agreements are also associated withreports of better health among children: 59 percent of children in joint custodyarrangements are reported to be in excellent health with no limitation comparedto 45 percent of those in sole custody arrangements with visitation and 49percent of those in sole custody arrangements without visitation.  Similarly 54percent of youth whose parents had a voluntary written agreement were reportedto be in excellent health with no limitation compared to 46 percent of youthwhose parents had a court-ordered agreement.  Contact with the non-residentfather is associated with better reports of health.  We suspect that reports ofhealth contain a psychological or emotional component, as well as being anindicator of physical health.  One reason for this belief is the bivariateassociations between health and contact and health and custody arrangements.  Asnoted above, youth whose parents had a sole custody arrangement with visitationprovisions were less likely to be rated in good health than those in solearrangements with no visitation, but contact itself is associated with betterratings of health.  Some of the non-resident parents will not see their childreneven though they have visitation provisions.  It is possible that either thecustodial parent or the children themselves or both would experience greaterdisappointment which could color their responses to assessments of the child'shealth when visitation is expected but does not occur than when it is notexpected.  

Logistic regression models were used to examine the influence of demographicfactors, custody and visitation arrangements, visitation, and payment of childsupport on the economic situation of the children's families and on thechildren's health.  As with the adult models, a series of regressions were run. The first model contained a set of background variables including years elapsedsince the agreement was made, where the non-resident father lives, and thecustodial mother's education, race/ethnicity, age and marital status, the numberof children covered by the award, and the child's age.  The second model addedinformation on custody arrangements and how the child support arrangement wasreached.  The third, and last model, added information on visitation and paymentof child support.  

Table 18 shows the models predicting to whether the children's familiesreceived AFDC in the previous year.  The observed relationships are summarizedbelow.

### Factors That Predict To Welfare Dependence

*Custodial parent currently (re)married (negatively related)*

*Education level of custodial parent (negatively related)*

*Age of mother (negatively related)*

*African-American family (positively related)*

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreement (positivelyrelated)*

*Amount of child support paid in previous year (negatively related)*

*Number of children covered by support agreement (positively related)*

*Years elapsed since support agreement (positively related)*

*Joint legal custody arrangement (negatively related)*

*Parents never married (positively related)*

*Age of youngest child (negatively related)*

*Nonresidential parent lives in different city or county of same state(positively related)*

*Hispanic family (positively related)*

### Table 18 p. 1

### Table 18 p. 2

### Factors That Might Be Expected To Predict That Do Not

*Frequency of visitation by nonresident parent in previous year*

*Nonresident parent lives in different state*

*Sole custody without visitation provision*

Even after controlling for demographic characteristics of the custodialparent, how far away the non-resident parent lives, years elapsed since theseparation, and information on custody, child support, and visitation, having acourt-ordered as opposed to a voluntary agreement increases the likelihood ofbeing on AFDC.  Not surprisingly, receiving higher amounts of child supportreduces the likelihood of receiving AFDC.  Contact, however, has no associationwith receipt of AFDC, contrary to our expectations.  This is in keeping,however, with our earlier finding that contact has no effect on the dollaramount of child support paid.  Contact appears to be linked less to income andincome-related factors than it is to other aspects of children's lives, as weshall see below.   

Table 19 contains the models predicting whether youth were in excellenthealth with no limitation.  The observed relationships are summarized below.

***Factors That Predict To Youth In Excellent Health with NoLimitations***

*Frequency of visitation by nonresident parent in previous year(positively related)*

*Custodial parent has less than a high school education (negativelyrelated)*

*Nonresident parent lives in different state (positively related, butonly significant when frequency of contact included in model)*

*African-American family (negatively related)*

*Years elapsed since support agreement (positively related)*

### Table 19 p. 1

### Table 19 p. 2

### Factors that Approach Significance

*Custodial parent currently (re)married (negatively related)*

*Other race family (negatively related)*

### Factors That Might Be Expected To Predict That Do Not

*Amount of child support paid in previous year*

*Joint legal custody arrangement*

*Sole custody without visitation provision*

*Court-ordered as opposed to voluntary support agreement*

With respect to children's assessed health, how an agreement was reached,type of custody arrangement, and amount of child support paid have no effect onhealth.  However, contact with the non-resident father is associated with agreater likelihood of being in excellent health with no limiting condition, evenafter controlling for all the other variables.   As noted above, we suspect thatthe health item is capturing at least in part psychological or emotionalwell-being, as well as physical health.  It appears that father-child contactdoes promote greater child well-being even though it may not contribute toeconomic well-being.

### SUMMARY OF FINDINGS OF REGRESSION ANALYSES

In this section, we summarize the results of a series of multivariateanalyses that examined the relationships between custody and supportarrangements, on the one hand, and the subsequent behavior of non-residentialparents, on the other.  The custody and support variables included whether thesupport agreement was voluntary as opposed to court ordered, whether it had anexplicit visitation provision, and whether there was a joint custody arrangement(either joint legal custody only, or joint physical custody as well).  Otherpredictor variables examined in the regressions were the frequency of contact bythe nonresidential parent in the past year, support paid by the parent in thepast year, the number of years that had passed since the support agreement wasissued, and whether the nonresident parent lived in another state or city at thetime of the survey.

The measures of behavior of the nonresidential parent that served asdependent variables in the regressions were the frequency of contact with thechildren in the current year, whether the parent provided any child support inthe current year, the dollar amount of support provided by parents who providedany support during the year, and the ratio of the amount paid to the amount owedunder the support order (compliance ratio).  Two measures of family well-beingwere also used as dependent variables.  One was freedom from welfare dependence(whether or not the family had received any welfare payments (AFDC) between WaveIII and Wave VI of the SIPP).  The other was an indicator of the health statusof older teens and young adult children in disrupted families (whether they werein "excellent" health with no health condition that limited theirdaily activities).

The results of the analyses are presented in summary form in Table 20 below. They are described in more detail in the following pages of the report.

**Table 20.  Relationships Between Custody and Support Arrangements and****Behavior of Non-residential Parents and Family Well-being Indicators**

### (Multiple Regression Analyses)

| Predictor Variables                                | Behavior of non-residential parent |                        |                   |                  | Well-being indicators           |                        |
|----------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------|------------------------|-------------------|------------------|---------------------------------|------------------------|
|                                                    | Frequency of contact               | Probability of support | Amount of support | Compliance ratio | Freedom from welfare dependence | Health status of youth |
| Voluntary support agreement                        | Y (+)                              | Y (+)                  | Y (+)             | Y (+)            | Y (+)                           | N                      |
| Visitation provision                               | Y (+)                              | N                      | N                 | N                | N                               | N                      |
| Joint legal custody                                | N                                  | N                      | Y (+)             | N                | Y (+)                           | N                      |
| Joint legal & physical

Past contact           | N

Y (+)                           | M (+)

Y (+)           | N

N              | Y (+)

Y (+)     | N

N                            | N

Y (+)               |
| Past support                                       | Y (+)                              | Y (+)                  | Y (+)             | Y (+)            | Y (+)                           | N                      |
| Elapsed time                                       | Y (–)                         | Y (–)             | Y (–)        | Y (–)       | Y (–)                      | Y (+)                  |
| Residence in other state 

Residence in other city | Y (–)

Y (-)                  | M (–)

N          | N

N              | M (–)

N    | N

Y (-)                        | Y (+)

N               |

Key:Y = significant relationship between predictor and dependent variable (p< .05)

M = marginally significant relationship (.05 < p < .10)

N = no significant relationship

(+) positive relationship between predictor and dependent variables

(–) negative relationship between predictor and dependent variables

**Voluntary versus court-ordered agreements.**  Thedistinction between voluntary child support agreements and support orders thatwere imposed by a court proved to be an important one as far as predicting tothe future behavior of nonresidential fathers was concerned.  Fathers who hadvoluntarily agreed to make regular financial contributions toward the care oftheir children maintained more frequent contact with those children than fatherswho had child support obligations imposed upon them.  Fathers in the formergroup were more likely than those in the latter to pay some support, to paylarger amounts of support, and to comply more fully with the terms of thesupport order.  Mothers who reached voluntary support agreements with theirformer husbands were less likely to be welfare dependent than mothers who had toobtain court-ordered child support.  Voluntary agreements were not associatedwith better (or worse) health for young adults from disrupted families, however.

**Visitation provision in child support agreement.** Nonresidential fathers had significantly more contact with their children whenthe child support agreement had an explicit provision specifying the frequencyand schedule of visitation than when such a provision was not present in theagreement.  On the other hand, the presence of a visitation provision was notassociated with a greater likelihood of paying child support, nor with thepayment of greater amounts of support, nor with better compliance with childsupport orders.  Having a visitation provision was associated with a reducedlikelihood of welfare dependence, but it was only significant at the .10 level. The presence of a visitation provision did not predict to better health foryouth from disrupted families.

**Joint custody arrangements.**  The distinction between jointcustody and sole custody arrangements also proved to be important for predictingto the future behavior of nonresidential fathers.  Fathers with joint legal andphysical custody were more likely to pay some support and to comply morefaithfully with the terms of the support agreement.  Fathers with joint legalonly arrangements paid larger amounts of child support than fathers in solecustody arrangements where the mother had custody.  Mothers who had entered intojoint legal custody arrangements were less likely to be welfare dependent thanthose with sole custody.

On the other hand, fathers with joint custody arrangements, regardless ofthe type, did not have significantly more contact with their children than whenthe mother had sole custody but the father had explicit visitation rights. (Both fathers with joint custody and those without joint custody but withvisitation provisions saw their children more frequently than when the motherhad sole custody and there was no visitation provision.)  As noted earlier,however, it is not clear how respondents interpreted the question about contactwhen the parents had joint physical custody.  There was no significantassociation between the presence of a joint custody arrangement and the healthstatus of youth from disrupted families, once other related factors were takeninto account.

**Past contact.**  The frequency with which nonresidentialfathers saw their children in the previous year was the strongest predictor ofhow much contact they would have in the current year.  Frequency of contact inthe recent past was also a significant, though much weaker predictor of whetherthe father would pay any child support in the current year, and how well hewould comply with the child support schedule.  Frequency of past contact did notpredict to how much support the father would pay, among those who paid anything. 

In addition, once past child support was entered into the regressionanalysis, past contact added little or nothing to the prediction of currentchild support.  Nor was more frequent contact associated with less welfaredependence, once related factors were taken into account.  However, morefrequent contact by the nonresidential father was associated with better healthstatus among older teenagers and young adults from disrupted families.

**Past child support.**The payment of child support in theprevious year was by far the strongest predictor of payment of child support inthe current year.  This was so whether the predicted variable was payment of anysupport, amount paid among those who paid any, or compliance with child supportorders.  Past child support was also a significant predictor of the amount ofcontact the nonresidential father would have with his children during thecurrent year.  Even when past contact was entered in the regression as well,past child support significantly strengthened the prediction of current contact. Past support was a stronger predictor of current contact than past contact wasof current child support.

The payment of child support in the recent past was associated with a lowerlikelihood that the custodial mother would be dependent on welfare.  This was soeven though the average amounts of child support paid by nonresidential fatherswere quite modest, averaging just $2,739 per year among custodial mothers with awritten agreement who had child support due that year.  Payment of child supportin the recent past, however, did not seem to make a difference as far as thehealth status of older children from disrupted families was concerned.

**Elapsed time since support agreement**.  In comparison tothe situation that prevailed in the late 1970s and the early 1980s (Furstenberg,Nord, Peterson, & Zill, 1983), there have been significant increases in theaverage amount of contact that nonresidential fathers maintain with theirchildren following separation, divorce, or childbearing outside of marriage. There have also been gains in the proportion of nonresidential fathers who payat least some child support during the course of a year, as well as some growthin the average amount of support paid (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1995; Zill &Nord, 1994).  However, it is still the case that both parental contact and childsupport become less frequent as time goes by.

Thus, even when other factors were controlled, the number of years that hadelapsed since the support agreement was reached proved to be a significantnegative predictor of how frequently nonresidential fathers would see theirchildren in the current year.  Elapsed time was also a predictor of whether thefathers would pay any support during the current year, of how much support theywould pay if they paid any, and of how well they would comply with their supportobligations.  Elapsed time was associated with a greater likelihood of welfaredependence, after related factors such as the age of the mother and the age ofthe child were taken into account.

Somewhat surprisingly, the number of years that had elapsed since thesupport agreement was found to be *positively* associated with the healthstatus of older teen and young adult children in disrupted families, aftercontrolling for custody, child support, and contact.  Although it cannot bedetermined with the SIPP data, the positive association may indicate adiminishing effect of marital conflict on child well-being; as the conflictbetween parents grows more distant in time, and the family reaches a newequilibrium, the mental health of the child gets better.  Such a supposition issupported by research which indicates that children go through a crisis periodfollowing a divorce, but that most children rebound psychologically andemotionally within a couple years of the divorce (Morrison and Cherlin, 1995;Chase-Lansdale and Hetherington, 1990).

**Residence in another state or city.**  Just as the passageof time led to less contact between the nonresidential father and the child, soalso greater distance between their respective residences was associated withless frequent visitation.  Nonresidential fathers who lived in another state sawtheir children less often than those who lived in the same state, even whenother related factors were controlled.  The same was true of fathers who livedin a different city or county of the same state, though to a less pronounceddegree.

Fathers who lived in another state or city were somewhat less likely to paychild support in the current year than those who lived in the same city andstate.  The statistical significance of the difference was only marginal,however, at the .10 level.  Among fathers who paid any support, those living inanother jurisdiction did not pay less support, on average, than those living inthe same city and state.  Father's residence in another jurisdiction wasassociated with less compliance with child support obligations, although againthe effect was of marginal significance.  Father's residence in another state orcity was not linked to a greater frequency of welfare dependence for thecustodial mother and her children.

Again there was an unexpected finding with respect to the direct indicatorof child well-being.  Here it was that father's residence in another state wasassociated with *better* health in the older teen and young adult childrenof divorce.  However, this relationship did not emerge until the frequency ofcontact with the father was included in the regression analysis.  It will berecalled that teenage children of divorce were reported to be in better healthwhen the nonresidential parent visited often.  Thus, the two relationships seemat least somewhat contradictory.

One possible interpretation for this positive relationship between thefather living in a another state and the youths health is that fathers who arevery involved with their children through the payment of child support andfrequent contact, despite living far away, may be showing their greatercommitment to their children which contributes to the children's better healthand psychological well-being.  Another interpretation is that living in anotherstate reduces the opportunity for conflict between the separated parents and thereduced conflict contributes to the children's greater well-being.  It isimpossible with the SIPP data to determine whether either or both of theseinterpretations is correct.

### CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS

To conclude our investigation of non-custodial parents' participation intheir children's lives, we examine the implications of the SIPP findings forvarious policies aimed at enhancing the functioning of postdivorce families withchildren and promoting the healthy development of young people who must grow upin these families.  Specifically, we discuss the extent to which the SIPPfindings support or fail to support the following kinds of policy options:

- encouraging parents who are separating to establish custody, support, andvisitation provisions through a process of bargaining and mutual agreementwhenever feasible, rather than through litigation and court mandate, andproviding mediation services, if needed, to assist in this process;
- requiring that custody and support agreements have explicit provisionsspecifying the visitation rights and responsibilities of each parent;
- encouraging and facilitating the access of non-residential parents to theirchildren, regardless of the type of custody arrangement that is agreed upon orwhether visitation arrangements are specified or not;
- encouraging joint custody arrangements, unless there are clear indicationsthat such arrangements would lead to continued conflict or endanger the safetyof the children or one of the parents; and,
-  limiting the rights of parents to move to another city, county, or state,if such a move would make it more difficult for the other parent to maintaincontact with the children involved.

Obviously, the present study is not a randomized policy experiment nor evena nonrandomized study of specific policy initiatives.  Thus, we must becircumspect about how far we go in drawing policy-related conclusions from thefindings.  As shown above, parents who enter into voluntary agreements differ inseveral respects from those who have court-ordered agreements.  Although ourmodels tried to control for these differences, it is possible that parents withvoluntary agreements differ from those with court-ordered agreements in waysthat we have not measured.  Such unmeasured characteristics could predisposeparents with voluntary agreements to pay more support and to maintain morecontact with the children.  If parents with a different set of characteristicswere cajoled into entering into a voluntary agreement, they might not behave inthe same manner.

A correlational panel study such as the present one cannot prove that agiven policy will work as its advocates contend it should.  An observedrelationship may be due to the operation of other, unmeasured factors.  However,the *failure* to find an expected correlation can provide firmer groundsfor believing that a specific policy will *not* work as anticipated.  Withthese cautions in mind, let us examine what the data seem to indicate about theviability of the policy approaches outlined above.

### Encouraging Voluntary Agreements

To begin with, the results of our analyses seem broadly supportive ofattempts to provide mediation and encourage divorcing couples or never marriedparents to enter into support agreements voluntarily.  The multivariate analysesindicate that court-mandated support orders are often associated with morenegative outcomes for families, even after controlling for the demographic andsocioeconomic characteristics of the parents and other possible mediatingfactors.  Custodial mothers with voluntary as opposed to court-orderedagreements reported significantly more days of contact with the non-residentfather, larger amounts of child support received, and better compliance by thefather with child support orders.  Such mothers were also less likely to havereceived AFDC in the previous year.

Although having a voluntary agreement had no detectable direct effect onchildren's health, it did have an indirect effect.  Voluntary agreements wereassociated with more frequent contact by the nonresidential father, and that inturn was associated with better health among older teens and young adultchildren.  Thus, the predominance of the evidence was clearly consistent withthe notion that voluntary agreements are something worth striving for. Encouraging parents to consider ways to structure and manage their child careand child support obligations might well give them a sense of ownership andself-direction.  This might, in turn, induce them to comply more faithfully withthe requirements of the agreement.  Of course, couples exhibiting substantialconflict would require mediation or other services before discussing the detailsof a support agreement.

As mentioned above, the correlational evidence from the present study doesnot demonstrate that it was the voluntary agreements *per se* that madethe difference in the subsequent behavior of the nonresidential parent.  It ispossible that there is a third factor or factors that leads parents to enterinto voluntary agreements and to maintain contact and pay child support.  But atleast we can say that there is nothing in the present findings that seriouslychallenges the argument in favor of voluntary agreements, where such agreementsare feasible.

### Requiring Explicit Visitation Provisions

Fathers' rights groups and other divorce reformers want to promote thecontinued involvement of nonresidential parents in their children's lives byrequiring that custody and support agreements have explicit provisionsspecifying the visitation rights and responsibilities of each parent.  They haveargued that such provisions would help to ensure that noncustodial parents haveaccess to their children and would lead to more ample and frequent payment ofchild support by these parents.

The findings of the present study support the notion that explicitvisitation provisions in child support agreements are linked to more frequentcontact between the nonresidential parent and child.  Indeed, when other factorswere controlled, families with sole custody arrangements that containedvisitation provisions evinced as much contact by the nonresidential parent asfamilies with joint legal custody arrangements.  As before, however, we cannotsay from the present results that it was the visitation provision as such thatled to the more frequent contact because we do not know what was in thevisitation provision.  Moreover, visitation provisions *per se* were *not*associated with significantly more frequent or abundant child support payments,nor were they linked with greater freedom from welfare dependence for thecustodial parent.

There was no direct linkage found between visitation provisions and bettermental or physical health for youth from disrupted families.  There was anindirect link, though, inasmuch as visitation provisions were associated withmore frequent contact by the nonresidential parent, and more frequent contactwas significantly related to better health for older teens and young adults fromdisrupted families.

In sum, the present study findings are supportive of the call for explicitvisitation provisions.  The SIPP results suggest that an important first step inmaintaining contact between children and their non-resident parents, is toencourage explicit visitation provisions in agreements.  However, the existenceof visitation provisions will not guarantee that visitation will occur.  TheSIPP findings also contradict one of the arguments made for such provisions,namely, that they will lead to the payment of child support.  If the aim is toencourage nonresident parents to pay what is due or to pay more child support,one must do more than ensure that visitation provisions are specified.  

**Encouraging and Facilitating Non-residentialParents' Access to Their Children**

Existing research indicates that there are a variety of reasons why fatherstend to lose contact with their children over time.  These reasons include thepsychological and emotional pain experienced by fathers due to their diminishedrole and the artificial nature of visitation, and lack of access to theirchildren due to actions of their former spouse (Price et al., 1994; Umberson andWilliams, 1993).  

Although the SIPP data reveal nothing about obstructive actions taken by thecustodial parent or the psychological adjustment of the non-residential parent,they do suggest that continued contact with the non-residential parent has abeneficial influence on older teens and young adults.  Moreover, contact has apositive association with both the payment of child support and with compliancewith child support orders.  Although this relationship diminishes with theaddition of past child support behavior to the models, the positive sign remainssuggesting that contact is not hindering the payment of child support and isactually exerting pressure towards the payment of child support.  The SIPPresults provide support for efforts that encourage contact between children andtheir non-residential parents.

### Promoting Joint Custody Arrangements

Another way of encouraging both parents to remain involved in theirchildren's lives following a divorce or birth outside of marriage is throughjoint custody arrangements.  In these arrangements, both parents participate indecisions about how their children are cared for and raised, or at least have alegal right to do so.  In the case of joint physical custody, the child mayactually live with and be cared for by one parent during part of the week, andwith the other parent during the rest of the week.

As the SIPP data demonstrate, joint custody is still an arrangement that isimplemented by a minority of divorced families.  And most of these opt for jointlegal custody only, not joint physical custody.  Joint custody is considerablymore popular now than it was ten or twenty years ago (Furstenberg & Nord,1985; Kelly, 1994; Seltzer & Meyer, 1996).(5)  Does joint custody appear tohave the beneficial effects on parental behavior and family well-being that itsadvocates have claimed?  And, does it matter whether the joint custodyarrangement is joint legal only or joint legal and physical?

The results of our analyses were broadly supportive of the arguments forjoint custody, though the influence of joint custody differed somewhat dependingupon whether it was joint legal only or joint legal and physical.  Themultivariate analyses indicate that nonresidential parents with joint legal andphysical custody were more likely to have paid some child support in the currentyear (significant at the .10 level) and to have complied more fully with theirsupport obligations than non-resident fathers in other arrangements.  There wasno difference in the probability of paying support or in the degree ofcompliance with the child support orders between fathers with joint legal onlycustody arrangements and other fathers.  However, fathers with joint legal onlyarrangements paid larger amounts of support than other fathers.  This was thecase even after controlling for the demographic and socioeconomiccharacteristics of the parents and other possible mediating factors.  Mothers injoint legal custody arrangements were significantly less likely to have receivedAFDC in the previous year.

Nonresidential fathers with either type of joint legal custody did not havemore frequent visitation with their children than nonresidential fathers whoseformer wives had sole custody but the father had explicit visitation privileges. However, these three groups had significantly more visitation thannonresidential fathers whose former wives had sole custody and there was novisitation provision in the support agreement.  Thus, joint custody does seem tobe associated with above-average visitation, though not as much as sometimesthought.  As discussed earlier,however, it is not clear precisely whatvisitation meant for joint custody families, especially in the case of jointphysical custody arrangements.

Joint custody was not directly linked with better health for older childrenfrom divorced families.  Also, as with voluntary agreements, the findings do notprove that the higher rates of child support found in joint custody familieswere directly attributable to the joint custody arrangements.  Nonetheless, wecan again say that there is nothing in the findings that seriously challengesarguments in favor of joint custody, where such arrangements are feasible.

### Limiting Moves by Divorced Parents

Another policy that has been advocated by those who seek to promote morepostdivorce involvement by nonresidential parents in their children's lives isone that would limit the rights of divorced parents to move to another city,county, or state.  Such moves are seen as making it more difficult for bothparents to maintain contact with the children.  Critics on the other side haveargued that such a policy would represent an unconstitutional restraint onparents' freedom, and could be harmful to a family's economic well-being aswell, by circumscribing the employment and remarriage possibilities of thecustodial parent.

The SIPP analyses show that the number of days on which non-resident fatherssee their children does indeed decrease as the father's distance from the childincreases.  This is also consistent with what previous research has shown(Furstenberg and Nord, 1985).  The decline appears to be nonlinear in that thegreatest decrease occurs when the father lives in a different city or county,even if he remains in the same state.

The father's residence in another state was found to be associated with alower probability of his paying child support in the current year (though therelationship was only significant at the .10 level), and with less compliancewith support obligations.  There was no relationship between residence inanother state and the amount of support paid by those fathers who paid any.

Research has been inconclusive about the importance of continued contactwith the non-resident father for children's well-being.  A consistent findinghas been that most children *want* to maintain contact with their fathers. The first several years after a marriage breaks up are often stressful forchildren, partly because of the loss of contact with one parent, usually thefather.  The SIPP analyses indicate that older children of divorce fare better,at least with respect to health, the more contact they have with theirnonresident fathers.  As noted earlier, we suspect that the health measure has asubstantial psychological or emotional component.

At the same time, and somewhat paradoxically, the regression analysesindicated that older children with divorced parents in a different state werehealthier, on average, than those whose nonresident parents were in the samestate and city.  This relationship only emerged when a term representing thefrequency of contact with the parent was also included in the analysis.  Weinferred that this association might represent greater motivation on the part ofthe non-resident fathers who remain involved which is beneficial for theirchildren.  Another possibility is that residence in another state might belinked to less opportunity for continued conflict between separated parents.

In sum, our results indicate that physical distance does play an importantrole in impeding continued parental involvement in children's lives.  However,the findings also indicate that it is possible for disrupted families andchildren to make a positive adjustment when parents live in different cities orstates.  A policy of strictly limiting parental moves does not seem supported byexisting research.

### Other Implications of the SIPP Findings

Relationships between contact and support.  Many researchers andpolicymakers are interested in determining the nature of the relationshipbetween contact with the non-resident parent and payment of child support.  Twoquestions are of particular interest.  First, will policies that increasenon-resident parents' payment of any child support or their compliance withchild support orders result in greater contact between them and their children? And, second, will policies that increase contact between non-resident parentsand their children result in higher compliance with child support orders? Existing research, generally based on studies that collect information oncontact and payment of child support at the same point in time, have yieldedinconsistent results (Seltzer, 1995; Seltzer et al., 1989; Veum, 1993).  TheSIPP findings, which use information collected one year apart, suggest that pastpayment of child support is more closely linked with future contact betweenparent and child than past contact is with future payment of support.  The SIPPmodels indicate that contact in the past year has a small influence on whetherany child support is paid in the current year and on compliance with the childsupport order, and no effect on the dollar amount paid by  men who are currentlypaying something.  However, once past child support payment behavior is enteredinto the model, contact has no influence on payment of child support in thecurrent year.  Compliance with child support orders in the past year is,however, a significant predictor of the amount of contact that the nonresidentparent has with his children in the current year, even when past contact andother factors are taken into account.

These results have at least two policy implications.  First, policies thatsimply aim to increase contact between nonresidential parents and their childrencannot be relied on to increase compliance with child support orders.  Morecontact may have a positive effects on child well-being, but may not increasepayment of support.  On the other hand, more vigorous enforcement of childsupport obligations *may* indeed result in more nonresidential parentsseeking increased contact with their children.  However, we cannot assume thatparents who do not currently pay will pay and spend more time with theirchildren because of enforcement efforts.  Nor can we assume that if they do pay,that their relationship with their children will be the same as the relationshipbetween children and fathers who currently are paying, especially if enforcementefforts are viewed as harsh or unfair.  To the extent that nonresident fatherswind up spending more time in positive interactions with their children andplaying a more active role in their lives, this could be a good thing.  However,increased contact could bring the possibility of renewed conflict betweenparents.  Further research aimed at identifying when positive or negativeconsequences should be expected seems warranted.

Families without written agreements.  Because the visitation and contactquestions were only asked of families with agreements in the SIPP 1990 and 1991panels, we were unable to examine issues of contact and support for parents whodid not have written child support awards.  However, from existing research wedo know that having an award is an important first step in obtaining any childsupport at all (Peterson and Nord, 1990).  

Nearly half (45.6%) of the custodial parents in the SIPP sample reportedthat they had never had an agreement of any type.   Almost half of these wereparents who had never married their former partners.  Such parents do not needto go through legal channels to separate, yet nearly a quarter of them hadreached written agreements and another 5 percent had non-written agreements. Research that examines why it is that some never-married parents are able toestablish written child support awards should be encouraged.  Such researchmight suggest ways to increase the proportion of never married couples withchildren who establish awards and visitation agreements.

### SUMMARY

In brief, the SIPP analyses provide support for the following types ofactivities:

-  Encouraging parents to establish child support agreements through aprocess of bargaining and mutual agreement, whenever feasible, rather thanthrough litigation and court mandate, and providing services, if needed, toassist in the process.  Even after controlling for background characteristics,fathers who had a voluntary written agreement ratified by the court maintainedmore contact with their children, were more likely to pay some child support,complied more fully with the child support orders, and paid greater amounts ofchild support than fathers who had court-ordered child support agreements.
-  Encouraging couples to specify visitation provisions in their agreements. Fathers had more contact with their children if the child support agreementcontained explicit visitation provisions.
-  Facilitating contact between non-resident fathers and their children. Although such efforts may not result in greater compliance with child supportorders, older teens and young adults in the SIPP analyses were more likely to berated as in excellent health as contact with their non-resident fatherincreased.  As noted above, the health measure is probably tapping aspects ofthe youths' mental and emotional well-being.  A natural first step would be torequire that couples specify visitation provisions in their agreements.

The SIPP results also provide some support for efforts to encourage jointcustody arrangements, though often there was little difference between eithertype of joint custody arrangement and sole custody arrangements in whichvisitation provisions had been specified.  Differences, when they were observedappeared to be in the payment of child support and not in the amount of contactwith the children or in the well-being of children. 

The SIPP results do not support efforts to restrict the move of parents toother cities or states.  Although contact did decrease as fathers moved fartheraway from their children, residence in another city had not adverse effect onthe likelihood that fathers would pay any child support or their compliance withchild support orders.  It also had no effect on the dollar amount paid byfathers who were paying some child support.  Residence in another city also hadno negative effect on the health of teenagers and young adults.  Residence inanother state, once previous child support behavior was entered into the models,also had no adverse effect on payment of child support or on children.      

### REFERENCES

Braver, Sanford H., Sharlene A. Wolchik, Irwin N. Sandler, Bruce S. Fogas,and Daria Avetina. 1991. "Frequency of Visitation by Divorced Fathers: Differences in Reports by Fathers and Mothers." *Amer. J. Orthopsychiatr*.61(3): 448-454.

Chase-Lansdale, P. Lindsay and E. Mavis Hetherington. 1990. The impact ofdivorce on life-span development:  Short and long term effects.  In P.B. Baltes,D.L. Featherman, R.M. Lerner, eds. *Life-Span Development and Behavior*Vol. 10.  Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. Pages 105-150.

Elder, Glen H., Jr., Jacquelynne S. Eccles, Monika Ardelt, and Sarah Lord.1995. "Inner-City Parents Under Economic Pressure:  Perspectives on theStrategies of Parenting."  *Journal of Marriage and the Family*57(3): 771-784.

Furstenberg, F.F., Jr. & C.W. Nord. (1985). Parenting apart: Patterns ofchildrearing after marital disruption. *Journal of Marriage and the Family,47*(4), 893-904.

Furstenberg, Frank F., Christine Winquist Nord, James L. Peterson, andNicholas Zill. 1983.  The life course of children of divorce.  *AmericanSociological Review* 52(5): 695-701.

Kelly, J.B. (1994). The determination of child custody. *The Future ofChildren, 4*(1), 121-142.

Maccoby, Eleanor E. and Robert H. Mnookin. 1992. *Dividing the Child: Social and Legal Dilemmas of Custody*.  Cambridge, MA:  Harvard UniversityPress.

Morrison, Donna Ruane and Andrew J. Cherlin. 1992. The divorce process andyoung children's well-being:  A prospective analysis.  *Journal of Marriageand the Family* 57(3): 800-812.

Notar, Susan A. 1995. An examination of state custody and visitation laws. Paper prepared for the U.S. Commission on Child and Family Welfare, June 1995.

Peterson, James L. and Christine Winquist Nord. 1990.  The regular receiptof child support:  A multistep process.  *Journal of Marriage and the Family*52(2): 539-551.

Price, David A., Robert G. Williams, Jessica S. Pearson, and Nancy A.Thoennes. 1994. *Child Access Demonstration Projects:  Final Wave I Report*. Reported submitted to the Office of Child Support Enforcement, U.S. Departmentof Health and Human Services, Washington, DC, September 30, 1994.

Seltzer, J.A., & Meyer, D.R. 1996. Child support and children'swell-being. *Focus, 17*(3), 31-36.

Seltzer, Judith A. 1995. Will child support enforcement increase fatherchild contact and parental conflict after separation?  Paper presented at theconference, *The Effects of Child Support Enforcement on Nonresident Fathers*,Princeton University, September 13-15, 1995.

Seltzer, Judith A. 1991.  Relationships between fathers and children wholive apart:  The father's role after separation.  *Journal of Marriage andthe Family* 53(1): 79-101.

Seltzer, Judith A., Nora Cate Schaeffer, and Hong-Wen Charng. 1989. Familyties after divorce:  The relationship between visiting and paying child support. *Journal of Marriage and the Family* 51(4): 1013-1032.

Umberson, Debra and Christine L. Williams. 1993. Divorced fathers:  Parentalrole strain and psychological distress.  *Journal of Family Issues* 14(3):378-400.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1995. Child support for custodial mothers andfathers: 1991. *Current Population Reports* (Series P-60, No. 187).Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economic and StatisticsAdministration.

U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1991. Child support and alimony: 1989. *CurrentPopulation Reports* (Series P-60, No. 173).  Washington, DC: U.S. Departmentof Commerce, Economic and Statistics Administration.

Veum, Jonathan R. 1993. The relationship between child support andvisitation:  Evidence from longitudinal data.  *Social Science Research*22(3): 349-360.

Zill, N., & Nord, C.W. (1994). *Running in place: How Americanfamilies are faring in a changing economy and an individualistic society.*Washington, DC: Child Trends.

### APPENDIX A:

### Child Support Module 1990 and 1991 Panels of SIPP

### APPENDIX B:

**Comparability of SIPP Estimates and Current Population Survey Estimates**

Table A-1 compares estimates obtain from the 1990 Panel of SIPP withestimates obtained from the April 1992 CPS.

Table A.1 Comparison of Child Support Data from the Survey of Income andProgram Participation (SIPP) and the Current Population Survey (CPS)

(As of October, November, December 1990, or January 1991 in the SIPP.  As ofApril 1992 in the CPS.

| Characteristics                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   | SIPP

Winter 1990/91                                | CPS

Spring 1992                                   |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------|----------------------------------------------------|
| **Custodial Parents**

Total.............................millions

Female....................................

Male......................................

**Custodial Parents with Awards**

Total.............................millions...

Female...............................................

Male.................................................

**Mean Child Support Received by Persons Receiving Any in Previous Year**

Total..............................dollars...

Female...............................................

Male................................................. | 12.4

10.9

1.5

6.7

6.3

0.4

2,725

2,739

2,435 | 11.5

9.9

1.6

6.2

5.5

0.6

2,961

3,011

2,292 |

Source:  CPS Numbers:  U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1995. Current PopulationReports. Series P90-187. *Child Support for Custodial Mothers and Fathers:1991*. U.S. Government Printing Office: Washington, DC, Table A-3.  SIPPNumbers:  Analysis of SIPP data by authors.

The child support questions asked in these two surveys, although similar,are not identical.  The questions used to obtain the above estimates from thetwo surveys appear below.

### Screener Questions:

SIPP: Is...the parent of the children under 21 years of age who live in thishousehold?  [If yes, ask next question]

Does...have any children in this household under 21 years of age who have aparent living elsewhere?  [Do not include stepparents or parents who would beliving at home except for military or other job related absences.]

CPS: Does...have any children under 21 years of age in this household youhave a parent living elsewhere?

### Type of Award Questions:

SIPP: These next few questions concern child support.  Have child supportpayments ever been agreed to or awarded for (any of) ...'s children living here?[If yes, ask]

In some cases, child support agreements are made and then later modified orrevised.  The following questions relate to the most recent initial agreementand any subsequent modifications of that agreement.

Was this agreement a voluntary written agreement ratified by the court, acourt-ordered agreement, some other type of written agreement, or a non-written(verbal) agreement? 

CPS: Were child support payments for ...agreed to or awarded?

No child support order/agreement

Voluntary written agreement

Court award

Other

### Child Support Received Questions:

SIPP: [These questions were only asked of persons with a written childsupport agreement.  They refer to the most recent such agreement.]

Were any payments due in the last 12 months?  [If yes, ask]

What is the total amount that ...was supposed to have received in childsupport payments during the past 12 months (from the most recent agreement)?

What is the total amount that ... actually received in child supportpayments under that agreement, during the past 12 months?

CPS: During calendar year 1991 were  you or your child(ren) covered by thisaward SUPPOSED to receive any child support?  [If yes, ask]

In total, how much in child support payments were you SUPPOSED to receive in1991 from child support agreement for (child(ren) covered by this award?

How much in child support payments did you ACTUALLY receive in 1991 for(child(ren) covered by this award?

As can be seen from the above questions, SIPP asks about child supportreceived in the previous year only of persons with written awards.  The CPS, onthe other hand, does not ask the respondent to distinguish written fromnon-written awards.  The question on child support received is asked of allpersons with any type of award who said that support was supposed to be due inthe previous year, regardless of whether the award was written.     

(1)See Appendix A for a copy of the child support module asked in both the1990 and 1991 panels of SIPP.

(2)See Appendix B for a comparison of SIPP and CPS estimates on selectedchild support variables.

(3)This estimate and the estimate of persons with voluntary agreementsdepends upon the respondents' understanding of the terms "court-orderedagreement" and "voluntary written agreement ratified by the court." In practice, the distinction between voluntary and court-ordered agreements canbe blurred.  For example, a voluntary agreement could be reached after amandatory mediation session.  

(4)Although we would have preferred to examine the health of all children,data on health were not available for children younger than 15.

(5)SIPP is the first national survey to distinguish joint legal only custodyfrom joint legal and physical custody.  The increase in joint custody over timethus refers to both types of custody arrangements combined.