Child Support in The Twenty-First Century

Summary

1. INTRODUCTION

Child support (child maintenance) policy – in Australia at least – is designed to ensure that: (a) children of separated or divorced parents receive adequate financial support (‘adequacy’); (b) both parents contribute to the cost of supporting their children, according to their respective capacities to do so (‘equity’); and (c) government expenditure is restricted to the minimum necessary to attain these objectives (equity between parents and the State, i.e. the public – private compact). But balancing the competing needs of children, separated mothers, separated fathers and the State is a formidable challenge in the twenty-first century, because families and relationships are becoming increasingly complex and fluid.

In this chapter, we seek to continue the conversation started by Eekelaar just over three decades ago, when he first alluded to the concepts of adequacy and equity in the context of child maintenance in England and Wales. We explore these two bedrock concepts through the lens of contemporary Australian and American child support policy: specifically, how well each country’s child support systems appear to respond to changes in children’s and parents’ circumstances. Our central argument is that well-designed administrative schemes for the assessment, collection and transfer of child support, such as the Australian and New Zealand systems, are better at balancing adequacy and equity than discretionary court-based or hybrid approaches. This is because they are much cheaper and easier to access, less onerous, and involve less stress than court-based systems, and can respond more quickly to changes in children’s and parents’ circumstances.

2. EEKELAAR’S INSIGHTS: ADEQUACY vs. EQUITY

In the family law arena, where adults’ needs often usurp those of children, Eekelaar has always given primacy to the latter over the former, due to:

children’s vulnerability … the likely longer-term impact of most decisions on children than on the adults involved, and the likelihood that children bore none, or less, responsibility than relevant adults for the circumstances that have arisen.

For Eekelaar, that a community has an obligation to support its children is axiomatic, though he notes that the extent of that obligation remains far from clear.