Income and Demographic Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers in 1993

by Elaine Sorensen and Laura Wheaton
The Urban Institute

June 2000

Prepared for:
Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
Department of Health and Human Services
200 Independence Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20201

This report is available on the Internet at:
http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/nonresfathers00/

The authors thank Linda Mellgren for her comments on earlier versions of this paper, and Jonathon Fischbach and Joyce Morton for research and programming assistance. Support for this research was provided by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation. The views expressed in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the Urban Institute or its funders.


Table of Contents

Executive Summary

I.  Introduction

II.  Data Development

  1. Identifying Nonresident Fathers
  2. Estimating the Number of Nonresident Fathers Missed by the SIPP
  3. Reweighting the Nonresident Fathers

III.  Characteristics of Custodial Mothers and Nonresident Fathers

  1. Socioeconomic Characteristics of Custodial Mothers and Nonresident Fathers
  2. Receipt and Payment of Child Support

IV.  Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers

  1. Socioeconomic Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers, By Payment Status
  2. Socioeconomic Characteristics of Low-Income Nonresident Fathers, By Payment Status
  3. Nonresident Fathers' Child Support Payments, By Poverty Status

V.  Conclusions

References

Appendix A:  Numbers Behind the Percentages Presented in the Tables

List of Tables

Table 1:  Identifying Nonresident Fathers in the 1993 SIPP

Table 2:  Estimated Deficit of Nonresident Fathers in the 1993 SIPP

Table 3:  Nonresident Fathers, by Reason Missing From the SIPP

Table 4:  Estimating the Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers Not Identified in the SIPP

Table 5:  Adjustments to the 1993 SIPP Population Weight used in Reweighting the File

Table 6:  Characteristics of Custodial Mothers and Nonresident Fathers in 1993

Table 7:  Receipt and Payment of Child Support in 1993

Table 8:  Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers, By Child Support Payment Status

Table 9:  Low-Income Nonresident Fathers, By Child Support Payment Status

Table 10:  Payment of Child Support, by Nonresident Father's Poverty Status

Table 11:  Payment of Child Support, By Race and Poverty Level

Appendix Tables

Table A.6:  Characteristics of Custodial Mothers and Nonresident Fathers in 1993

Table A.8:  Characteristics of Nonresident Fathers, By Child Support Payment Status

Table A.9:  Low-Income Nonresident Fathers, By Child Support Payment Status

Table A.10:  Payment of Child Support, by Nonresident Father's Poverty Status


Executive Summary

During the past few years, research has shown that nonresident fathers, as a whole, can afford to pay more child support, but that a minority of them are poor and have a limited ability to pay child support. This report updates and improves upon earlier analyses and provides more information on the circumstances of low-income fathers. The findings of this analysis confirm that strengthening child support enforcement is warranted, but that poor fathers may need a different approach, one that focuses on building their capacity to pay child support.

In the 1993 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), 8 million men self-identified as nonresident fathers compared to 10 million women who self-identified as custodial mothers. Thus, making a general assumption that there are likely to be an equal number of nonresident fathers and custodial mothers, this survey identifies 80 percent of nonresident fathers, a figure that is substantially higher than that found in earlier research.

Of the nonresident fathers who are missed by the 1993 SIPP, about 70 percent were missed because they lived in prisons or military barracks, were in the military overseas, or were missed through the problem of the "undercount." The remaining 30 percent of nonresident fathers who are missed by the 1993 SIPP are actually present in surveyed households, but cannot be identified as nonresident fathers. We reweight the men who self-identify as nonresident fathers to take the missing fathers into account so that the final analysis is more representative of all nonresident fathers.

Using the reweighted data, we find that nonresident fathers, as a whole, are considerably better off financially than custodial mothers as a whole. In 1993, nearly two-thirds of custodial mothers had family incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold. In contrast, 60 percent of nonresident fathers had incomes above 200 percent of the poverty threshold that year. One in four nonresident fathers had incomes above 200 percent of the poverty threshold in 1993 and did not contribute financially to their nonresident children. This discrepancy in the financial situation of custodial mothers and nonresident fathers suggests that there is potential for some nonresident fathers to increase the amount of support that they provide their nonresident children.

We also find, however, that 40 percent of nonresident fathers have family incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold and the majority of these do not pay child support. Low-income nonresident fathers who pay support, pay a higher percentage of their income than do higher income fathers. Low-income fathers who do not pay child support tend to be considerably disadvantaged in the labor market--about half do not have a high school degree and about half have not held a job in the past 12 months. Nearly 20 percent of them are incarcerated. Increased enforcement efforts are unlikely to collect sufficient child support from low-income fathers to substantially improve their children's financial circumstances. A different approach may work better, one that emphasizes employment-related services and other support services that enable low-income fathers to improve their job skills and parenting.

[ Go to Contents ]


I. Introduction

During the past few years, research has shown that nonresident fathers, as a whole, can afford to pay more child support, but that the minority of them who are poor have a limited ability to pay. This report updates and improves upon earlier analyses and provides more information on the circumstances of low-income fathers. The findings of this analysis confirm that strengthening child support enforcement is warranted, but that poor fathers may need a different approach, one that focuses on building their capacity to pay child support.

We find that nonresident fathers, as a whole, are considerably better off financially than custodial mothers. In 1993, 60 percent of nonresident fathers had family incomes that were more than 200 percent of the poverty threshold, while only 35 percent of custodial mothers had family incomes that high. Despite this, just over half of these fathers paid child support in 1993. These findings suggest that there is potential for some nonresident fathers to pay more child support.

However, we also find that 40 percent of nonresident fathers have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty threshold. Three-quarters of these men (about 3 million) do not pay child support. About half of these fathers do not have a high school diploma and about half of them have not worked for over a year. It appears that many of these fathers could benefit from employment-related services.

Below, we discuss the steps involved in generating nationally representative estimates of nonresident fathers. Our results follow, focusing first on comparisons between custodial mothers and nonresident fathers and then providing greater information about nonresident fathers. We conclude with a summary of our findings.


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Last updated: 02/20/01