Why is Child Support So Unfair to Fathers?

Written by Dr Andrew Lancaster, Head of Child Support Australia

Summary

Child support is often unfair to fathers in Australia because the system doesn't account for personal financial circumstances, including income tax, new living expenses, and loss of assets.

Fathers with higher incomes and less custody tend to contribute more but receive less benefit. They lose financial control due to the government's grab-all approach. The biased child support system underpins and reinforces bias against men in public policy and the Family Court.

The greatest source of frustration and inequity for many fathers is being railroaded into the role of a distant financial provider. Dads want to spend money on their kids directly, not by transferring funds to someone else. They would be far happier with the financial burden if they saw their children more often.

Introduction

Good men are stoic. They don’t complain or ask for much. They shoulder burdens and protect those around them.

Fathers, for the most part, are good men. They would lay down their lives for their children without a second thought. How many times have you heard of a drowning incident where kids got into trouble, and the only one to die was the father who dove in to help?

So, why do fathers complain about paying child support? Why do they see it as unfair? Let’s address some truths that need to be highlighted. Here’s why child support is so unfair to fathers.

1. Payment Amounts are Literally Unfair

Australian uses an income shares model to determine how much child support parents pay. Parents effectively pool part of their incomes into a combined fund, from which they draw money in proportion to the amount of care each provides. Fathers tend to be payers due to higher incomes (meaning they contribute more) and less custody (meaning they take out less).

Child support calculations are unfair to fathers because they do not properly account for:

• the basic costs of raising a child
• the amount of tax he pays
• his higher expenses from living alone or supporting a new partner or family
• the loss of wealth, such as his home, due to separation or divorce.

The costs of children tables used in the calculations do not reflect ordinary living costs. Instead, costs are assumed to rise with income, as if the father were living with the mother and children in an intact family. Fathers may, in fact, be struggling financially despite what their tax return says.

On the flipside, the same calculations also hurt mothers who share care evenly and earn a good income. They may be unfairly forced to pay child support to fathers with lower incomes. Fathers on low incomes, meanwhile, often escape the unfairness of the income-based scheme, paying very little.

2. Payment is in Full and by Force

Child support in Australia largely removes a father’s discretion to spend on his children as he sees fit. The Australian Government has effectively taken control of his finances. The calculations are designed to extract the full amount a father would spend on his children within an intact family, leaving nothing to spare.

It’s often forgotten that fathers enjoy spending money on their children directly. They may also need to adjust spending based on their unique circumstances. However, for many fathers with limited contact, the funds are already allocated to the mother by the government. There is no discretionary income for the father to spend out of generosity.

This is a socialist approach to a common problem. Everyone should be aware of the issues with that. I’ll explain the negative impacts further down.

3. Child Support Underpins Systemic Bias

Why do you think Family Court judges and judicial registrars are so willing to grant full or nearly complete custody of children to mothers in most circumstances, including when they're unemployed or on low incomes? A key reason is that if the father has any money, the judge knows the mother will be able to obtain much of it through child support.

In parenting matters, judges seem to show little interest in the respective ability of each parent to financially provide for their child. So, rather than allowing a child to spend significant time with their well-off father, the family law and child support systems conspire to place the child with the lower-income mother and make the father pay for it.

And public policy is geared to inflict further pain on fathers. Domestic violence campaigns assume men are the perpetrators, overlooking abuse by women. Financial incentives for women to report domestic violence, like emergency payments and housing assistance, lead to misuse, further disadvantaging men.

The integration of child support, family law, and domestic violence systems to encourage a fatherless society is perhaps the most unfair impact of child support. Fathers have reasonable access to their children removed, then are forced to pay into this arrangement. Criminal proceedings may be involved. Innocent fathers are reduced to maligned financial slaves, which is why too many end up taking their own lives.

Negative Outcomes of an Unfair System

Socialism never works and child support in Australia provides further evidence of that. These are all serious problems that could be alleviated to a significant extent by lessening financial unfairness towards fathers:

1. Children are routinely denied access to their fathers by mothers and/or the Family Court of Australia.
2. Fathers are routinely victims of false allegations of domestic violence, giving mothers control over accommodation and custody.
3. Parents reduce their incomes for more favourable assessments, with the average incomes of parents involved with child support far below those of other prime-age adults.

A fairer child support system, such as the Pay for Extra Care model with realistic costs, would benefit Australian fathers, along with their children and the community as a whole. We can take away some or much of the profit motive associated with controlling custody and minimising income.

Australia would be better off adopting a more sensible approach with improved incentives and fewer damaging effects on parent-child relationships. In being to unfair to fathers and treating them as second-class citizens, we prioritise misguided social justice over the welfare of everyone.