Child Support Regularity and Non-Promotional School Moves

Background and Purpose: Approximately one-third of school moves are unrelated to household relocation (Herbers, Reynolds & Chen, 2013).  When sufficiently large and regular, income supports may reduce the risk of residential and school instability, which may benefit children in a variety of ways.  Yet very little work directly examines how income supports might be associated with residential moves and none have examined school moves as a distinct phenomenon.  Policies that impact school mobility have been minimally explored but are potentially consequential for schools and policymakers to consider.

Study objectives and Research Question: This study examines the relationship between the regularity of child support payments and non-promotional school moves holding annual child support received, residential moves, housing environment, school and child specific characteristics constant.

Methods: This study uses administrative data from Wisconsin merged with child and school level data from the Department of Public Instruction and the Multi-Sample Person File (MSPF) that merges a number of data sources. Data on child support payments, program participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Program (SNAP), and Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) as well as individual earnings data from the Unemployment Insurance (UI) system, maintained by the Wisconsin state government are included.

The study sample is 123,444 Wisconsin families with child support orders in effect for at least 2 years with 256,634 children in the public school system from 2006 to 2011.   Using multivariate logistic regression models with year and school fixed effects, we examine the relationship between child support regularity and school moves controlling for demographic, socioeconomic, residential moves, school and child-specific characteristics that are associated with school mobility.  To control for child level factors associated with non-promotional school moves, we include whether the child has been suspended or expelled, school attendance rates, child disability and whether a child is an English language learner. To control for school level characteristics that may be associated with non-promotional moves, we include a series of dummy variables indicating which school the child attended. We include the Department of Housing and Urban Development Fair Market Rents as an indicator of housing costs in all models.

Results:  Controlling for the amount of child support received, local rents, child, family and school level factors associated with school mobility and child support regularity, we find that receiving child support for at least four months in a year compared to less regular support is associated with a 3.5 to 4.6 percent reduction in the odds a child will make a non-promotional school move.

Conclusions and Implications:  Though all models control for school and child characteristics, there may be other factors not captured that influence families’ school choices.  The data do not allow us to test mechanisms for why we observe that more regular child support reduces non-promotional school moves.   However, this study provides empirical support for the import of child support payment regularity on school mobility, an important arena for children not previously considered.