by:
Laudan Y. Aron and Linda D. Giannarelli
The Urban Institute
April 1995
This study reports on a sample of AFDC cases from Massachusetts in which child support was due during 1993. Most studies of child support collections are based on data from a special supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS) devoted to child support or on data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP). Both of these are nationally-representative household surveys and while the resulting data are generally considered to be reliable (and are able to support a wide variety of studies of child support awards and payments), they are self- reported data and subject to the limitations presented by such data. A more reliable source of information on actual payments and distributions of child support are the state level agencies responsible for collecting and administering child support on behalf of mothers receiving AFDC benefits. Massachusetts provided the Urban Institute with a random sample of 2,401 AFDC cases from the total of 54,065 AFDC cases with an active child support order at some point during the year. The data provide monthly information on a variety of child support and AFDC measures, as well as data on the custodial parent's sociodemographic characteris tics, such as age and educational attainment. The social and demographic information are current as of December 1993 (the end of the period covered by the child support and AFDC administrative data).
The files that comprise the full text of this report are available via Anonymous FTP as zipped WordPerfect® 5.1 files (56KB).
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