Joint physical custody and neighborhood friendships in middle childhood

Almost half of first marriages end in divorce, which in turn may produce joint physical custody arrangements. Seen by many states to be in the best interest of the child, joint physical custody is increasingly common. Yet much is unknown about its consequences for children. This article considers how joint physical custody arrangements affect children’s neighborhood friendships, an important component of child well-being because of their contributions to social and cognitive development. Thirteen parents and 17 children (aged 5–11) in 10 families, selected via convenience and snowball sampling, participated in semistructured interviews. The findings suggest that joint physical custody arrangements do not imperil children’s neighborhood friendships; indeed, most children and parents interviewed voiced contentment in this area.

Growing up without parents: socialisation and gender relations in orphaned-child-headed households in rural Zimbabwe

The most distressing consequences of the HIV/AIDS pandemic's impact on children has been the development of child-headed households (CHHs). Child 'only' households challenge notions of the ideal home, family, and 'normal' childhood, as well as undermining international attempts to institute children's rights. The development of these households raises practical questions about how the children will cope without parental guidance during their childhood and how this experience will affect their adulthood. Drawing on ethnographic research with five child heads and their siblings, this article explores how orphaned children living in 'child only' households organise themselves in terms of household domestic and paid work roles, explores the socialisation of children by children and the negotiation of teenage girls' movement. Further, it examines whether the orphaned children are in some way attempting to 'mimic' previously existing family/household gender relations after parental death. The study showed that all members in the CHHs irrespective of age and gender are an integral part of household labour including food production. Although there is masculinisation of domestic chores in boys 'only' households, roles are distributed by age. On the other hand, households with a gender mix tended to follow traditional gender norms. Conflict often arose when boys controlled teenage girls' movement and sexuality. There is a need for further research on CHHs to better understand orphans' experiences, and to inform policy interventions.

Abandoned in Brussels, delivered in Paris: long-distance transports of unwanted children in the eighteenth century

The study uses examinations and other documents produced in the course of a large-scale investigation undertaken by the central authorities of the Austrian Netherlands in the 1760s on the transportation of about thirty children from Brussels to the Parisian foundling house by a Brussels shoemaker and his wife. It combines the rich archival evidence with sparse indications in the literature to demonstrate that long-distance transports of abandoned children were a common but historiographically neglected by-product of the ambiguities of foundling policies in eighteenth-century Europe and provides insight into the functioning of the associated networks and the motives of parents, doctors, midwives, transporters, and local officials involved.

Welfare impact of a ban on child labor

This article presents a new rationale for imposing restrictions on child labor. In a standard overlapping generation model where parental altruism results in transfers that children allocate to consumption and education, the Nash-Cournot equilibrium results in suboptimal levels of parental transfers and does not maximize the average level of utility of currently living agents. A ban on child labor decreases children's income and generates an increase in parental transfers bringing their levels closer to the optimum, raising children's welfare as well as average welfare in the short run and in the long run. Moreover, the inability to work allows children to allocate more time to education, and it leads to an increase in human capital. Besides, to increase transfers, parents decrease savings and hence physical capital accumulation. When prices are flexible, these effects diminish the positive welfare impact of the ban on child labor.

Algerian orphans and colonial Christianity in Algeria, 1866-1939

This article considers the exceptional fate of the orphan survivors of the great Algerian demographic crisis of the late 1860s who subsequently converted to Catholicism. Using a prosopographical approach, this study seeks to highlight the complexities of national identity in France and to explore some of the racial tensions emerging in Algeria in the late nineteenth century.

Custodial grandparenting: stresses, coping skills, and relationships with grandchildren

This cross-sectional study compared three groups of custodial grandparents, those raising problematic grandchildren, those raising "normal" grandchildren, and noncustodial grandparents to identify the unique challenges and expectations faced by custodial grandparents due to their nontraditional roles while attempting to disentangle grandparental role demands from child-specific problems as sources of distress. Those grandparents raising grandchildren demonstrating neurological, physical, emotional, or behavioral problems exhibited the most distress, the most disruption of roles, and the most deteriorated grandparent-grandchild relationships. Although custodial grandparents raising apparently normal grandchildren demonstrated less distress, less disruption of roles, and less deterioration of the grandparent-grandchild relationship than those grandparents raising grandchildren displaying problems, in these respects, they still demonstrated higher such levels than did traditional grandparents.

Child support and the postdivorce economic well-being of mothers, fathers, and children

This article provides national estimates of the current and potential impact of private child support transfers on the economic well-being of custodial and noncustodial families following marital dissolution. Mothers and children fare dramatically worse than fathers after marital dissolution; these differences, however, would be much more pronounced in the absence of private child support. Simulations of four existing child support guidelines show that substantial increases in economic well-being among mother-custody families are possible within the structure of the existing child support system, with minimal impact on poverty among nonresident fathers. Under all of these guidelines, however, custodial-mother families would continue to fare substantially worse than nonresident fathers.

A survey of contact with offspring and assistance with child care among parents with psychotic disorders

To help improve services for parents with psychotic disorders, patients with such disorders in three treatment agencies in Queensland, Australia, were surveyed about whether they were parents, how much contact they had with their offspring, and who provided assistance with child care. Of the 342 individuals with psychotic disorders who participated in the study, 124 were parents. Forty-eight parents in the study had children under age 16, and 20 of these parents (42 percent) had their children living with them. Most parents relied on relatives or friends for assistance with child care. Barriers to child care services identified by parents were inability to pay, lack of local services, and fear of losing custody of children.

Deadbeat dads or inept states? A comparison of child support enforcement systems

This article provides information on the effectiveness of state child support enforcement systems. We use individual level data from the Child Support Supplements of the Current Population Surveys (1978-1992) to create an index of state effectiveness that captures success at securing child support awards, setting award levels, and collecting obligations. We identify states that were performing above or below the national average in the late 1980s to early 1990s and states that showed substantial improvement or decline in child support effectiveness during the 1980s. Identifying successful states will help researchers to determine what policies and practices are associated with successful enforcement. These variations in state effectiveness also suggest that low levels of child support are not due to deadbeat dads alone but also to inept states.

Young unwed fathers of AFDC children: do they provide support?

We examine the support provided by fathers of children born to disadvantaged teenage mothers. Our sample includes the fathers of 6,009 children born over a two-year period to 3,855 teenage mothers receiving AFDC in three economically depressed inner cities. These fathers provide little social and economic support to their children. Support declines as their children age from infants to toddlers and as fathers' relationships with the mothers grow more distant. Fathers' employment status and educational attainment positively affect the amount of economic support that they provide but do not strongly influence the amount of social support they provide.

Health insurance and child support

This DataWatch examines the extent of the child support system's increasing efforts to require nonresident parents to provide health insurance for their children. More than half of children who have public insurance only and more than one-fourth of uninsured children live in families that could be affected by the child support system. Nonresident fathers now provide insurance to only 15 percent of children living with their mother. More than one-third of such children have public insurance only. Thus, if the child support system could ensure children's coverage through nonresident fathers, taxpayer spending on public insurance could decrease.

Trends in child support outcomes

This paper examines trends in child support award rates, award amounts, and receipts. We investigate four hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the downward trend in these outcomes during the 1980s: (1) changes in the demographic composition of the population eligible for child support, (2) increases in mothers' income, (3) decreases in fathers' income, and (4) inflation. Our results indicate that trends in nonmarital fertility can explain much of the decline in award rates. The steady downward trend in fathers' incomes during the 1980s also explains a considerable portion of the decline in award rates, award amounts, and receipts. Our results are also consistent with the notion that persistent money illusion is responsible for the decline in real child support awards.

The determination of child custody

This article reviews briefly the history of child custody decision making and describes current custodial arrangements in the United States. It examines both the manner in which parents and courts make decisions regarding custody and access, and the changes in visiting patterns in recent decades. The author discusses the impact of reforms in the law and the implementation of newer dispute resolution and educational interventions, and then makes recommendations for policy and practice.

The economic costs of martial disruption for young women over the past two decades

This paper examines the economic costs of separation and divorce for young women in the United States from the late 1960s through the late 1980s. Broadened opportunities for women outside marriage may have alleviated some of the severe economic costs of marital disruption for women. This paper contrasts the experiences of two cohorts of young women: those who married and separated or divorced in the late 1960s through the mid-1970s and those who experienced these events in the 1980s. Based on panel data from the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth 1979-1988. Young Women 1968-1978, and Young Men 1966-1978, the results show stability in the costs of disruption. A multivariate analysis shows that young women in the more recent cohort have more labor force experience before disruption than those in the earlier cohort, but prior work history does not protect women from the severe costs of marital disruption.

No right to silence

Enforcement of maintenance payments by absent parents will not necessarily mean the child is better off. Women who refuse to disclose the identity of the absent parent may face deductions from their state benefits. In the first of two articles Beth Lakhani of the Child Poverty Action Group describes how the new Child Support Agency will operate.

Child support and welfare dynamics: evidence from Wisconsin

This paper provides estimates of the effect of child support on exiting and reentering welfare for a sample of divorced women in Wisconsin. Modest amounts of child support do not have large effects on exiting welfare in this sample. The percentage of women who return to welfare is higher than has been reported previously. Receiving child support significantly decreases the likelihood of returning to welfare.