How cultural and policy contexts interact with child support policy: A case study of child support receipt in Korea and the United States

In the last few decades, nations across the world have placed greater emphasis on finding ways to increase child support receipt among single-parent families. However, there is very little empirical evidence about whether and how national strategies to increase child support collection should differ based on cultural and policy contexts. Much of the extant research has examined the correlates of child support receipt within a given nation (mostly the United States), while few studies have employed a cross-national comparative perspective to examine child support correlates. The current study compares child support correlates in Korea and the United States, two countries that have certain similarities in economic conditions and welfare arrangements but differ in cultural and policy contexts that may affect child support receipt. We conduct logit analysis using a sample of 3178 custodial single-mother families (1111 Korean and 2067 U.S. mothers) drawn from two national-level data sources representative of single-mother families residing in Korea and the United States, respectively. The results suggest that cultural and policy contexts have an important influence on child support receipt via their effect on child support correlates. For example, fathers' willingness to support their children and mothers' ability to pursue child support were more important predictors of child support receipt in Korea than in the United States. Specific policy implications for both Korea and the United States are discussed.