DESCRIPTORS IDENTIFIERS

Past research on child support payments has suggested that a large problem exists with post-divorce payments of child support. Much of this research, however, suffers from the methodological flaws of mixing together people who wers divorced with people who were never married any of questioning only the custodial parent:. This study surveyed a sample of 378 divorcing families and obtained matched data from both custodial and noncustodial parents. Respondents were interviewed immediately after their divorce and again one year later. In addition, decrees of divorce were examined and payment records were analyzed through the clerk of the court. The results revealed that only 80 % of the decrees contained the provision that child support be paid through the clerk. Regardless of what the decree ordered, most parents paid directly to the custodial parent. This finding suggests that to rely on clerk records exclusively yields a highly misleading underestimate of child support payments