Do Non-Resident Parents with Lower Labor Market Attachment React to Institutional Changes in Child Support Obligations? Evidence from IAB-PASS

Marianna Schaubert and Carsten Hänisch

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: This paper investigates how parents who live apart from their children have responded to changes in the amount of the self-support reserves. Being financially able to pay maintenance is a precondition for the obligation to maintain children in Germany. Parents with incomes below the self-support reserve do not pay child support. In addition, the self-support reserve di ers for employed and unemployed parents. The difference between the two is considered to be a bonus for employment by competent courts, which they adjust over time. We exploited PASS panel data and individual fixed-effects models to observe parents' responses to these changes. We did not confirm the Higher Regional Courts' assertion that the increasing difference between the self-support reserves of employed and non-working parents is an incentive to work. Further, we found no evidence of any influence on attitudes towards the labor market or debt behavior.

Keywords: Child support; low-income nonresidential fathers; child support guidelines; child support enforcement; labor supply; child support debt (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J08 J16 J18 K36 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-eur, nep-lab and nep-law
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:214624

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