Child support and non-resident fathers’ contact with their children

Abstract

The paper presents a theoretical model of a non-resident father’s child support and contact
with his child, which combines the public good treatment of child-expenditure with “trade” in
father-child contact-time. The model provides predictions concerning the effects of father’s
income and binding child support orders on contact. Using new data from the British
Household Panel Survey on frequency of contact of non-resident fathers with their dependent
children, there is evidence that, among middle-income fathers, higher father’s income
increases contact with his children. In the context of the theory, this suggests that setting a
higher binding child support order would reduce father’s contact for these fathers.