Custody, Access and Child Support: Findings from The National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth

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III - WHEN PARENTS SEPARATE: CANADIAN CHILDREN FROM BROKEN FAMILIES AND THE LAW (continued)

Court-Ordered Child Support Arrangements

The survey asked about the arrangements parents had made for child support when they separated. The following questions were posed:

What type of agreement was made regarding support/maintenance payments when ...'s parents separated or divorced?

• 1. None
• 2. Private agreement between spouses
• 3. Court-ordered agreement in progress
• 4. Court-ordered agreement
• 8. Don't know
• 9. Refusal

Was this ... ?

• 1. For child support only
• 2. For spousal support only
• 3. For both
• 8. Don't know
• 9. Refusal

How regular have the maintenance support payments been?

• 1. Regular and on time
• 2. Regular but late sometimes
• 3. Irregular
• 4. No payments for the last 6 months
• 5. No payments for the last year
• 6. No payments for the last few years
• 7. Payments never been received
• 8. Payments stopped due to a change in circumstances, e.g. court order, death of payer, etc.
• 98. Don't know
• 99. Refusal

No definition of the term "private agreement" was provided, so it remains difficult to interpret some of the results. For example, parents might have had a truly private agreement between themselves, or they could have been referring to a written separation agreement when they stated they had a private agreement. The latter arrangements are as good as a court order and can be enforced by, or registered with, an enforcement agency. Therefore, children covered by such an arrangement are not necessarily in the precarious situation one might imagine when the term "private agreement" is used. Table 11 shows the distribution of Canadian children from broken homes by type of support agreement, according to the type of separation.

Table 11: Type of Support Agreement According to Type of Broken Union--Canada and Regions--NLSCY, Cycle 1, 1994-1995

Canada

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	48.7	15.6	20.3	27.8
Court order in progress	8.3	8.3	8.2	8.3
Private agreement	25.9	39.4	29.2	31.5
No agreement	17.2	36.7	42.2	32.5
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	1047	1077	1184	3308

Atlantic Provinces

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	52.5	21.0	20.2	30.9
Court order in progress	5.9	8.1	9.9	8.0
Private agreement	18.2	33.1	18.7	23.6
No agreement	23.5	37.8	51.2	37.5
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	82	90	82	253

Quebec

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	33.3	12.7	17.9	21.6
Court order in progress	15.4	10.7	15.0	14.3
Private agreement	28.7	41.4	30.9	32.3
No agreement	22.6	35.1	36.2	31.9
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	246	158	407	812

Ontario

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	54.3	15.4	20.5	28.2
Court order in progress	5.9	9.9	6.0	7.5
Private agreement	21.9	36.3	33.5	31.3
No agreement	18.0	38.5	40.0	33.0
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	351	491	373	1215

Prairies

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	54.0	16.3	21.1	32.1
Court order in progress	6.9	5.8	2.4	5.1
Private agreement	27.0	42.0	21.1	29.6
No agreement	12.0	35.9	55.4	33.2
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	213	170	181	564

British Colombia

	Type of Broken Unions
Region and Type of Support Aggreement	Marriage Divorce	Marriage Sepparation	Common-Law Sepparation	All Unions
Court order	50.9	15.3	26.1	30.5
Court order in progress	5.9	3.8	1.2	3.7
Private agreement	32.8	47.4	29.3	37.0
No agreement	10.5	33.4	43.5	28.8
Total	100.0	100.0	100.0	100.0
N1	155	168	140	463

^{1 N = Weighted data brought back to the original sample size.}

The most significant finding here is that for almost a third of Canadian children whose parents have separated, the parents said there was no agreement regarding child support payments.

Children whose parents had actually divorced at the time of the survey were more likely to be covered by some type of child support agreement than children whose parents had not divorced. When the parents were divorced, parents said there was a court order in place, or in progress, in 57 percent of cases and there was no agreement in only 17 percent of cases. Forty-two percent of children from broken common-law unions were without any form of child support agreement and they were followed closely by children whose parents had not yet divorced at the time of the survey (37 percent).

Table 12 shows that the proportion of court-ordered agreements for child support tends to increase with time. Most likely, this finding simply reflects the time it takes for cases to be finalized in the courts. Nonetheless, 11 percent of children were covered by a court-ordered agreement even when the parents had been separated less than two years, and the percentage increases to 39 percent when the parents had been separated at least five years. One interesting fact, however, is that the percentage of children whose parents said there was no agreement for child support did not decrease significantly over time. Thus, even five years or more after the separation, 54 percent of parents had no court order for child support, but close to half of these parents had a private agreement between the spouses.

Table 12: Type of Support Agreement According to Time Elapsed Since Separation--Canada and Regions--NLSCY, Cycle 1, 1994-1995

Canada

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	10.9	10.1	41.4	37.6	100.0	1057
2-4 years	33.3	7.6	29.8	29.3	100.0	1174
5 + years	38.7	7.2	23.5	30.6	100.0	1062

Atlantic Provinces

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	13.6	12.1	30.7	43.6	100.0	89
2-4 years	32.3	7.0	27.6	33.1	100.0	87
5 + years	49.7	4.3	10.5	35.5	100.0	76

Quebec

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	7.7	10.1	49.2	33.0	100.0	246
2-4 years	32.3	15.1	24.9	27.8	100.0	251
5 + years	23.9	16.8	25.0	34.3	100.0	314

Ontario

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	11.6	13.8	35.8	38.7	100.0	389
2-4 years	34.3	4.4	31.3	30.1	100.0	458
5 + years	38.3	4.9	26.3	30.6	100.0	365

Prairies

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	11.7	5.3	41.0	42.0	100.0	185
2-4 years	28.9	8.6	29.6	33.0	100.0	185
5 + years	54.8	1.6	18.8	24.8	100.0	191

British Columbia

	Type of Support Agreement
Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Less than 2 years	11.5	5.4	50.2	32.8	100.0	147
2-4 years	36.9	4.7	33.9	24.4	100.0	192
5 + years	46.0	0.0	27.1	26.9	100.0	116

^{1. N = Weighted data brought back to the original sample size.}

If the time since separation and the type of separation are taken into account, the impact of formalizing the break-up of the parents' union on the type of agreement for child support is very clear. As can be seen in Table 13 below, five years or more after their parents had separated, there was no agreement regarding child support for 18 percent of children whose parents were divorced. This compares to 39 percent for children whose parents were separated and 46 percent for children from broken common-law unions.

The existence of an agreement concerning child support tells us very little about whether the payments are actually made and the regularity with which they are made. We will now turn to this question. Is the regularity of payments linked to the type of parental separation and the type of agreement reached regarding child support?

Table 13: Type of Support Agreement According to Type of Broken Union and Time Elapsed Since Separation--NLSCY, Cycle 1, 1994-1995

	Type of Support Agreement
Type of Broken Union and Time Elapsed	Court Order	Court Order in Progress	Private Agreement	No Agreement	Total	N1
Marriage-divorce	48.9	8.4	26.0	16.7	100.0	1037
Less than 2 years	12.7	13.3	48.3	25.7	100.0	90
2-4 years	51.5	8.6	27.6	12.4	100.0	388
5 + years	52.9	7.5	21.4	18.2	100.0	559
marriage-separation	15.6	8.3	39.3	36.8	100.0	1075
Less than 2 years	12.6	9.5	42.5	35.4	100.0	578
2-4 years	19.4	7.8	34.6	38.2	100.0	374
5 + years	18.3	4.1	38.5	39.1	100.0	123
common-law-separation	20.5	8.3	29.4	41.9	100.0	1175
Less than 2 years	7.9	10.6	38.9	42.6	100.0	382
2-4 years	28.7	6.4	27.6	37.3	100.0	412
5 + years	24.2	7.9	21.8	46.0	100.0	381

^{1. N = Weighted data brought back to the original sample size.}

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