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Activity Number:
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178
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Type:
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Contributed
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Date/Time:
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Tuesday, August 13, 2002 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
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Sponsor:
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Social Statistics Section*
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| Abstract - #301560 |
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Title:
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Counting Custodial Fathers: The Role of Imputation and Survey Probes in Identifying Custodial Fathers in the Child Support Supplement of the Current Population Survey
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Author(s):
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Heather Koball*+ and Laura Wheaton
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Affiliation(s):
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Urban Institute and Urban Institute
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Address:
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2100 M St., NW, Washington, District of Columbia, 20037,
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Keywords:
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Child Support Statistics ; Imputation ; Survey Design ; Government Statistics
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Abstract:
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The count of custodial fathers in the Child Support Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS-CSS) began to decline after changes were made to the survey in 1994. Between 1994 and 1998 the number of custodial fathers in the CPS-CSS declined by 7%. During the same time period the number of single father families counted in the CPS increased by 33%. We analyzed the impact of imputation procedures and survey probes on the count of custodial fathers in the CPS-CSS. We found that an increasing proportion of children of single fathers were imputed as non-custodial between 1994 and 1998. Furthermore, the rate at which married couples were imputed as custodial father families declined substantially between 1994 and 1998. Survey probes may also have played a role in the declining number of custodial fathers. We compared the use of probes to identify custodial children in the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) and the CPS-CSS in 1998. SIPP probes identified 56,000 additional custodial fathers. The CPS-CSS excluded custodial families identified through probes who had never pursued a child support order, which excluded up to 470,000 potential custodial fathers.
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