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Full-Text Articles in Law
What About The Children: How Children Of Same-Sex Couples Are Left Without State-Run Support, Ann Kathryn Watson
What About The Children: How Children Of Same-Sex Couples Are Left Without State-Run Support, Ann Kathryn Watson
The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice
States should enact legislation affording same-sex partners the same rights and responsibilities to their children as opposite-sex partners. Although federal law mandates specific duties owed to the child, the language is silent about whether it applies to same-sex partners. Moreover, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which defines marriage as being between a man and a woman. Some states—namely Texas—have passed their own version of DOMA. These states have subsequently denied same-sex partners the same rights granted to opposite-sex partners—such as conservatorship, visitation, and child support. Same-sex partners have used DOMA as a legal strategy to either avoid …
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Supporting Children, Balancing Lives, Katharine K. Baker
Pepperdine Law Review
This paper examines how U.S. child support policy validates traditional divisions of labor and thereby hinders individual attempts to achieve an acceptable work/family balance. It argues that by using the household as the relevant unit of measurement for child support purposes, family law doctrine legitimates the specialization contracts that arise within households. These specialization contracts, used most extensively in wealthy, elite households, undermine attempts to distribute caretaking and provider roles more equally between parents. The article suggest that by dispensing with the household as the relevant unit of measurement and treating all parents individually, each with a responsibility to caretake …
Don't Forget Dad: Addressing Women's Poverty By Rethinking Forced And Outdated Child Support Policies, Daniel L. Hatcher
Don't Forget Dad: Addressing Women's Poverty By Rethinking Forced And Outdated Child Support Policies, Daniel L. Hatcher
All Faculty Scholarship
In the dialogues regarding reducing poverty among women, especially mothers, the inextricably linked issues surrounding low-income men must be simultaneously considered. In social policy addressing women’s poverty, poor fathers have too often been considered primarily as an enemy to be pursued rather than a fellow victim of poverty’s wrath, and potential partner towards the cure. We want someone to blame, and many assume that poor single mothers are best served by always being encouraged — and even forced — to pursue the noncustodial fathers for financial support through adversarial means. Mothers applying for public assistance are forced to sue the …
Child Support Guidelines And Divorce Incentives, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen
Child Support Guidelines And Divorce Incentives, Margaret F. Brinig, Douglas W. Allen
Journal Articles
A child support guideline is a formula used to calculate support payments based on a few family characteristics. Guidelines began replacing court awarded support payments in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and were eventually mandated by the federal government in 1988. Two fundamentally different types of guidelines are used: percentage of obligor income, and income shares models. This paper explores the incentives to divorce under the two schemes, and uses the NLSY data set to test the key predictions. We find that percentage of obligor income models are destabilizing for some families with high incomes. This may explain why …