Children Come First: A Report to Parliament Reviewing the Provisions and Operation of the Federal Child Support Guidelines - Volume 1

APPENDIX 4: SUPPLEMENTARY TABLES-SURVEY OF CHILD SUPPORT AWARDS

Table A: Disposition of Child Support Order by Year of Judgment
  Year of judgement  
1997-98 [72] 1999 2000 Total
# % # % # % # %
Consent/uncontested 9,881 86.6 10,041 88.4 7,854 93.1 20,566 89.1
Contested 1,534 13.4 1,320 11.6 583 6.9 2,527 10.9
Total 11,415 100 11,361 100 8,437 100 23,093 100

Source: Survey of Child Support Awards database.

Notes:

  1. Where year of judgment is known.
  2. For purposes of this analysis, cases from the pilot phase and phase II of the Survey of Child Support Awards were combined to provide a full 12 months of cases for 1997–98. Data for the pilot phase of the Survey of Child Support Awards were collected between December 1997 and October 1998. Data collection for phase II of the survey started in November 1998.
Table B: Frequency Distribution of Issues Dealt With in the Survey of Child Support Award Cases
Combination of issues # %
Child support, custody, access 5,315 29.4
Child support, custody, access, spousal support 3,229 17.9
Child support only 2,364 13.1
Child support, custody 675 3.7
Child support, arrears 659 3.6
Child support, custody, access, award
termination provision		 605 3.3
Custody, access 509 2.8
Child support, custody, access, spousal
support, award termination provision		 330 1.8
Child support, custody, access, arrears 316 1.7
Child support, custody, access, review clause 302 1.7
Child support, custody, access, other issue 300 1.7
Child support, spousal support 279 1.5
Child support, access 217 1.2
Child support, custody, spousal support 214 1.2
Child support, award termination provision 208 1.2
Custody only 192 1.1
Other combination 2,363 13.1
Total cases1 18,077 100.0

Source: Survey of Child Support Awards database, February 2001.

1 Excludes cases for which an issue was not reported for the order or judgment.

Table C: Most Frequent Combinations of Issues Dealt With, by Type of Order
  Total Order/Judgment Variation
Combination of issues # % # % # %
Total cases1 17,400 100.0 13,632 100.0 3,768 100.0
Child support, custody, access 5,082 29.2 4,776 35.0 306 8.1
Child support, custody, access, spousal support 3,160 18.2 3,115 22.9 45 1.2
Child support 2,228 12.8 798 5.9 1,430 38.0
Child support, custody 634 3.6 498 3.7 136 3.6
Child support, custody, access, award termination provision 585 3.4 551 4.0 34 0.9
Child support, custody, access, spousal support, award termination provision 328 1.9 326 2.4 2 0.1
Child support, custody, access, review clause 288 1.7 259 1.9 29 0.8
Child support, custody, access, arrears 300 1.7 209 1.5 91 2.4
Child support, custody, access, other 295 1.7 285 2.1 10 0.3
Child support, custody, spousal support 211 1.2 203 1.5 8 0.2
Other combination 4,289 24.6 2,612 19.2 1,677 44.5

Source: Survey of Child Support Awards database, February 2001.

1 Excludes cases for which an issue or the type of order were not reported.

There has been a small increase in the proportion of cases that result in shared physical custody arrangements (as defined by the Federal Child Support Guidelines) from 1998 to 2000.

Table D: Type of Physical Custody Arrangement by Year of Judgment*
  Year of judgment  
Type of physical custody arrangement   1998 1999 2000 Total
Sole-mother # 2,579 8,955 6,355 17,889
% 80.5% 80.3% 78.1% 79.5%
Sole-father # 282 928 770 1,980
% 8.8% 8.3% 9.5% 8.8%
Shared # 151 604 541 1,296
% 4.7% 5.4% 6.6% 5.8%
Split # 169 577 421 1,167
% 5.3% 5.2% 5.2% 5.2%
Other # 22 84 53 159
% 0.7% 0.8% 0.7% 0.7%
Total # 3,203 11,148 8,140 22,491
% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0% 100.0%

* Note: This means the type of custody for purposes of determining child support amounts. This table does not reflect the allocation of legal decisionmaking authority.