Paying to Stay Home: On Competing Notions of Fairness and the Imputation of Income
RECONCEIVING THE FAMILY, Robin Fretwell Wilson, ed., Cambridge University Press, 2006
Posted: 9 Aug 2006
Abstract
The ALI Principles of the Law of Family Dissolution offer a number of considerations to be taken into account when deciding child support issues. This chapter focuses on one kind of case - when income should be imputed to a stay-at-home parent - to illustrate some of the competing interests and rationales which are involved in such decisions. The chapter suggests that while the goals and considerations cited by the ALI are eminently sensible, there is a remarkable looseness of fit between these goals and considerations on the one hand and the actual recommendations on the other. This is regrettable. Because the difficult decisions will not involve whether to consider these competing interests and rationales but how heavily to weigh them, the ALI has offered no helpful guidance to jurisdictions deciding whether or how to modify their child-support policies.
Keywords: child support, stay-at-home parent, income imputation, shirking, public policy
JEL Classification: J12, J13, J22, K10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation