1997 U.S. Survey Data on Non-Resident Fathers and Child Support

Survey data from the 1997 National Survey of America's Families examines poor fathers who do not pay child support. The data shows that the majority of these fathers are nonwhite, only 31 percent were working at the time of the survey, and nearly 40 percent of non-working fathers were institutionalized. It was authored by Elaine Sorensen.

Use Cases

• Analyze racial disparities in child support payments based on the demographic breakdown mentioned.
• Study the relationship between employment status and child support compliance based on the reported employment rate.
• Investigate the role of institutionalization in non-payment of child support based on the reported statistic.
• Model potential impacts of extending work-support programs to fathers based on the policy discussion.

Strengths

• Data is sourced from a named national survey (1997 National Survey of America's Families).
• Description provides specific, cited statistics (e.g., 31% employment rate, 40% institutionalization).
• Includes a clear author attribution (Elaine Sorensen).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Last update date is unknown; freshness unverified.

Provenance

Source

1997 National Survey of America's Families

Collection Method

Survey data collection.

Time Range

1997

Geography

United States