Single Parents and Child Support Systems: An International Comparison (Book Review)

In England and Wales, child support is often sidelined by family lawyers. For academics, the formulaic approach contrasts strongly with the discretionary approach to financial remedies on divorce, and tends to attract less commentary. For practitioners, child support is primarily an administrative matter which falls outside their remit. However, as this collection makes clear, child support is of vital importance to single parents and their children. Further, the novel approach taken in this book of ‘locating the transfer of payments between separated parents within a wider social policy ecosystem’ brings life to a subject often dismissed as dry and technical. The book is well worth a read by anyone interested in the financial consequences of relationship breakdown.