Overview

After separation parents must re-allocate their responsibilities for the care and financial support of dependent children. Over time children grow older, parents repartner and new children are born. Children's families change, both in the household where they live and in the household of their non-resident parent, as do their needs and parents' resources. Using data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies Parents and Children after Marriage Breakdown Survey, this report focuses on the financial support of children and some associated family and economic circumstances. The time frame for the study is that immediately preceding the introduction of the first stage of the Australian Government's Child Support Scheme in June 1988; the cohort comprises men and women who divorced in the early 1980s; the perspective is from five to eight years after separation.

This report is based on data from the Australian Institute of Family Studies' Economic Consequences of Marriage Breakdown (ECMB) Study and the Parents and Children After Marriage Breakdown (PCMB) Study. The ECMB and PCMB studies are part of the Institute's Australian Family Reformation Project."

Child Support Scheme Evaluation Study report no. 6