The Impact of Child Support on Fertility, Parental Investments and Child Health and Well-Being

Anna Aizer, Princeton University
Sara McLanahan, Princeton University

Previous studies have shown that children who receive child support are better adjusted and have higher levels of school achievement than children who do not receive support. Another literature has found that child support has a negative effect on fertility. Yet studies of the effect of child support policies on child health and well-being have not taken fertility decisions into account, that is, they assume that the composition of children classified by child health and well-being is unrelated to prior fertility decisions. Failing to account for the fertility decision will bias any estimation of the impact of child support on child health and well-being. Knowledge of the total impact of child support that affects both the fertility decision and parental investments after the child is born requires estimating the parameters on both the birth selection process and child investments, conditional on being born.