The effect of child support on selection into marriage and fertility

Daniel Tannenbaum

Working Papers from U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies

Abstract: Child support policies in the United States have expanded dramatically since the mid-1970s and now cover 1 in 5 children. This paper studies the consequences of child support for marriage and fertility decisions. I first introduce a model showing that child support enforces ex ante commitment from men to provide financial support in the event of a child, which (1) increases premarital sex among couples unlikely to marry, and (2) reduces the abortion rate, by lessening the cost of raising a child as a single mom. Using variation in the timing and geography of the rollout of U.S. child support laws relative to the timing of pregnancy, from 1977 to 1992, I find that marriages following an unplanned pregnancy are less likely to occur under strengthened child support laws, accounting for about a 7-8 percentage point reduction relative to a base of 38 percent. I find that the child support rollout reduced the abortion rate by 1-2 per 1000 women aged 15-44, off a base of 28, representing about 50 percent of the total decline in the abortion rate over this period.

Keywords: child support; family; marriage; abortion (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J12 J13 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 86 pages
Date: 2019-02
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dem and nep-law
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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https://www2.census.gov/ces/wp/2019/CES-WP-19-04.pdf First version, 2019 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: The Effect of Child Support on Selection into Marriage and Fertility (2020)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cen:wpaper:19-04

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