This project is funded by the Provost's office. The primary goal of the project is to understand the effects of policies concerning divorce, child support procedures and enforcement, and mediation on children's well-being and parent-child relations. Specific attention is given to whether the effects of these laws differ with age and gender of the child.
State policies have direct effects on legal alternatives in the divorce context, but they also have indirect effects on psychological outcomes such as children's well-being and affective ties between parents and children. While connecting state-level variables with individual outcomes produces complex interpretive challenges, there is considerable precedent for making this link. In any case, we believed that it was crucial in this time of increased pressure for restrictive divorce, to estimate the role of various divorce and child support policies on children's well-being.
The findings are critical to future work and focus on identifying policies imposed by states, concerning divorce, that may mediate or moderate the effects of divorce on children and their relationships with their parents.