Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement [Hardcover]

Irwin Garfinkel (Editor), Sara McLanahan (Editor), Daniel Meyer (Editor), Judith Seltzer (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 351 pages
• Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation; 1St Edition edition (November 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0871543036
• ISBN-13: 978-0871543035
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 7.1 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,790,774 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book focuses a great deal of research on Fathers., April 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement (Hardcover)

This book, unlike most other books which blindly focus on independent aspects of poverty and well being, succeeds in bringing together a pool of information on Fathers. I found the writing articulate and the information at worst a honed compilation of all research on the topic, and at best an excellent resource for all in the field of population studies.

6 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Two Decades of Failure, March 19, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement (Hardcover)

This book is written by small, established clique with association to the Wisconsin Institute for Research on Poverty. Individually, each researcher has turned out years of credible research. Unfortunately, they have a reputation for deviating from credible research results when arguing policy to the public and when making a case for specific reforms. The major failures of the current child support system are largely attributable to this crowd, which from the 70s have promoted the application of old Soviet Russian "welfare policy" in the United States. Perhaps the most bizarre aspect of this history, is that Congress was so willing to implement the reforms, forcing states to replace traditional Constitutionally based mechanisms for dealing with family issues.

I too, would like to rename the book. A proper title would be "Our Two Decades of Failure and the New Spin for the 21st Century: What We Want You to Believe Now".

I agree with the previous reviewer that lack of focus on the effects of child support reform at higher income levels underlies a basic failure of the book to enter current discussion in a rational way. The "success" of the authors in promoting policy reform is largely concentrated in the fact that federal "welfare laws" and welfare bureaucracy have now been extended to all income levels. Simply ignoring the most damaging effects of these reforms doesn't make them go away.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A compilation of research papers on low income fathers., December 17, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Wichita, KS) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fathers Under Fire: The Revolution in Child Support Enforcement (Hardcover)

Each chapter of this book is a separate study looking at child support enforcement and its impact on nonresident fathers. The authors believe the biggest impact of enforcement efforts falls on low income and poverty level fathers, therefore virtually all of what they study focuses on that group alone. Consequently, it would have been more appropriate to include "Low Income" in the book's title. Unfortunately, the majority of nonresident fathers are not in this population, as enforcement activities impact them as well. Understanding the impact on the bigger population would help policy makers improve overall enforcement activities. One area that I was especially disappointed about in this book is the fact that none of the authors address the foundation for child support enforcement, and that is the basis that child support orders are determined. Statistics and figure abound on what nonresident parents (usually fathers) "owe" in child support, yet it seems to be simply accepted as a given that the guidelines used in each state are fundamentally sound in their philosophy and economics. If, as many argue, the numbers are overstated through lack of consideration of the expenses of an involved nonresident parent's "parenting", the impact on them can be enormous, creating a roadblock to involvement in their child's life. This creates enormous conflict of its own, and certainly can't help but contribute to the problem of father absence. As the US Census has pointed out, when a nonresident parent is involved in their child's life, compliance with child support is approximately 90%. One could argue, which this book fails to do, that for enforcement to truly work, we should do all we can to foster dual parent involvement. This book provides an interesting look at poverty level fathers within this public policy arena. Its usefulness from a practical point of view however, is limited to only that population. Focusing change based on this material would be dangerous as the data is "incomplete".