Poverty is both a leading cause and consequence of parental separation, and an important predictor of children’s well being. In Australia, as elsewhere, women and children have generally been more likely to experience financial hardship following separation than men. Indeed, the Child Support Scheme was introduced in the late 1980s to ensure that children of separated or divorced parents receive adequate financial support, and that both parents contribute to the cost of supporting their children according to their respective capacities to do so. More recently, sweeping changes to the Child Support Scheme were introduced featuring a dramatically different system for the calculation of child support. Have the financial living standards of separated mothers, fathers, and their children changed since the introduction of the reforms? This paper explores post-separation financial wellbeing among a national random sample of 1,186 Child Support Agency clients just prior to, one year after, and three years after, the introduction of the new child support formula on 1 July 2008. The data are from a large, ARC-funded, longitudinal study of the impacts of the new Australian Child Support Scheme.

Dr Vu Son, Data Analyst, ADSRI
Professor Bryan Rodgers, Professor of Family Health & Wellbeing, ADSRI and Director, Centre for Gambling Research, ANU
Associate Professor Bruce Smyth, ADSRI