Child support and partnership dissolution

Abstract

This article studies the determinants of partnership dissolution and focuses on the role of child support. We exploit the variation in child support liabilities and entitlements driven, in part, by the introduction of a new set of complex rules that determined child support liability in the UK, and by their interaction with welfare rules. Our panel has the virtue that the post 1993 variation in child support liability for all couples in partnerships formed prior to 1993 is unanticipated. We find strong evidence that the resulting large child support liabilities significantly reduced dissolution risks.