Some comments on child support and the 1994/5 review of the Child Support Act (from a post to nz.general on 10 August 1995)

Hon. Wyatt Creech (on 1 July 1993, as Minister of Revenue) stated in reply to a question in the House that: "The formula assessment provides for support of the child. It doesn't provide support for the custodian." He also said that $140 million child support revenue was anticipated in 1993-4. Presumably all this money (if received) was spent on the children.

Technically, at least, the custodial parent "gets" nothing, the children get it all.

The Child Support Review Consultative Document specifically addresses the question of gender bias in the Child Support Act. On page 16, the issue of gender discrimination in the legislation is dismissed on the basis that the assessment criteria are gender neutral:

"The Act is only concerned with the provision of financial support from absent parents toward their children, not the gender of the liable parent or custodian."

The language is clearly gender neutral. However there is a difference between the technical effects of the legislation, as specified in the gender neutral language of the Act, and the distributional effects in terms of who is generally affected in what way.

This is clearly stated and the bias apparent on page 24, where it states that:

"a strong disincentive to workforce participation could result if every dollar earned by the custodian over a given threshold resulted in a decrease in child support. As 84% of lone parents are women, structural gender based inequities in the labour market could be worsened."

In other words, you should be gender neutral in your language, even though the legislation is designed to meet gender-specific objectives.

*********

I note also the use of the terms "absent" parent (for NCP) (and see here), and "lone" parent (for CP), although a parent is an NCP if the children are there for anything less than 40% of the nights.

Stuart Birks

Last modified 14 June, 1996