Child Support in the Age of Complex Families: It's Critical, but It's Broken

Issues in Science and Technology and the National Academies' Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education are pleased to announce that Kathryn Edin will give the Fall 2017 Henry and Bryna David lecture. Edin will address how to strengthen child support in the age of complex families.

Family instability and complexity have grown dramatically in the United States in recent decades, trends that are concentrated among the most disadvantaged of our citizens. Child support is critical but our policies are ill-equipped to handle the reality of today's families.

Drawing on more than 400 in-depth interviews with low-income noncustodial fathers in four locales, Edin argues that child support is the key institution to insuring resources flow from the noncustodial parent to the child. Child support must deliver as many paternal resources — both material and socioemotional — to children as possible through strengthening co-parenting relationships and father-child bonds.

Biography:
Edin is the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of sociology and public health at Johns Hopkins University and is one of the nation's leading poverty researchers. Author of eight books and some 60 journal articles, her 2015 book, "$2.00 a Day: The Art of Living on Virtually Nothing in America," was met with wide critical acclaim and was included in the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2015.

Kimberly Quach

Consortium for Science, Policy and Outcomes

kimberly.quach@asu.edu

http://cspo.org/cspo-in-dc/