How Child Support Can Better Help Single Mothers

Child support is often a highly charged, contested aspect of parenting after a relationship breaks down. It has the potential to counter child poverty but is often less a resource than an intransigent problem in the lives of single mothers, undermining their financial security and sense of well-being.

In Australia child support can be paid through Department of Human Services (Child Support) or organised privately. Most people who pay child support are fathers, and most people who receive child support are mothers.

In my recent research, conducted with Kay Cook and Torna Pitman, single mothers raised three central concerns about Australia’s child support system.