TY  - JOUR
AU  - Aizer,Anna
AU  - McLanahan,Sara
TI  - The Impact of Child Support Enforcement on Fertility, Parental Investment and Child Well-Being
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11522
PY  - 2005
Y2  - August 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11522
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11522.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Anna Aizer
Brown University
Department of Economics
64 Waterman Street
Providence, RI 02912
Tel: 401/863-9529
Fax: 401/863-1970
E-Mail: anna_aizer@brown.edu

Sara McLanahan
Princeton University
265 Wallace Hall
Princeton, NJ 08544
E-Mail: mclanaha@Princeton.EDU
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2005-08-01
AB  - Increasing the probability of paying child support, in addition to increasing resources available for investment in children, may also alter the incentives faced by men to have children out of wedlock. We find that strengthening child support enforcement leads men to have fewer out-of-wedlock births and among those who do become fathers, to do so with more educated women and those with a higher propensity to invest in children. Thus, policies that compel men to pay child support may affect child outcomes through two pathways: an increase in financial resources and a birth selection process.
ER  -