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Author: Conrad, Cecilia
Resulting in 2 citations.
1. Bloom, David E.
Conrad, Cecilia
Miller, Cynthia K.
Child Support and Fathers' Remarriage and Fertility
NBER Working Paper No. 5781, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
Also: http://www.nber.org/cgi-bin/wpsearch.pl?action=bibliography&paper=W5781&year=96
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)
Keyword(s): Child Support; Educational Attainment; Fathers; Fathers, Absence; Fertility; Marriage; Modeling, Hazard/Event History/Survival/Duration; Parents, Non-Custodial; Parents, Single; Remarriage; Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP)

This paper tests the hypothesis that child support obligations impede remarriage among nonresident fathers. Hazard models fit to data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth and from the Survey of Income and Program Participation reveal that child support obligations deter remarriage among low-income nonresident fathers. The benefits to children of stricter child support enforcement are thus diminished by the negative effects of child support on remarriage, as a substantial share of nonresident fathers remarry and help support women with children. Indeed, simple calculations based on our findings suggest that the financial benefits to children in single-parent families of improved enforcement may be substantially or completely offset by the negative effects of enforcement that operate indirectly through diminished remarriage. The results provide no evidence that child support influences the nature of matches in the remarriage market or the likelihood of subsequent fertility.
Bibliography Citation
Bloom, David E., Cecilia Conrad and Cynthia K. Miller. "Child Support and Fathers' Remarriage and Fertility." NBER Working Paper No. 5781, National Bureau of Economic Research, October 1996.
2. Bloom, David E.
Conrad, Cecilia
Miller, Cynthia K.
Child Support, (Re)Marriage, and the Economic Well-Being of Children
Presented: San Francisco, CA, Population Association of America Meetings, 1995
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Population Association of America
Keyword(s): Child Support; Children, Well-Being; Fathers, Absence; Heterogeneity; Marriage; Modeling; Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID); Simultaneity; Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP); Variables, Independent - Covariate

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

This paper explores whether the payment of child support influences marriage rates among nonresident fathers. Two avenues through which female-headed families can alleviate economic hardship are the receipt of child support payments and marriage (or remarriage). But the pool of men eligible to marry women who head families consists in large measure of unmarried fathers, many of whom have a legal obligation to pay (and some of whom actually do pay) child support. These child support obligations may diminish a man's willingness to undertake the financial obligations associated with marriage and may also diminish a man's desirability as a marriage partner. We examine this relationship by analyzing data contained in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, and the National Survey of Families and Households (Waves I and 11). We develop and estimate a two-equation statistical model, one equation for the hazard of marriage among nonresident fathers, with child support entered as a time-varying covariate, and a second (jointly-estimated) equation for the payment of child support, which includes state child support policies as regressors (which help to identify the marriage equation). This simultaneous system allows us to estimate the effect of child support on the likelihood of marriage controlling for unobserved heterogeneity among nonresident fathers related to their payment of child support.
Bibliography Citation
Bloom, David E., Cecilia Conrad and Cynthia K. Miller. "Child Support, (Re)Marriage, and the Economic Well-Being of Children." Presented: San Francisco, CA, Population Association of America Meetings, 1995.