Katherine Rother

Child support is a subject that is rarely treated in anthropological literature. Other researchers in the social sciences have worked on topics such as child support enforcement issues and effectiveness of the system (Bartfeld and Meyer 1994; Ellis 2001; Huang, Han, and Garfinkel 2003), compliance with child support orders (Meyer and Bartfeld 1996; Bartfeld and Meyer 2003), ability to pay child support (Sorensen 1997), and the reasons behind case openings, yet child support case closure remains an underexplored topic. This ethnographic study fills part of this gap by examining the recent phenomenon of the declining child support caseload in Monterey County, California to ascertain the specific factors influencing a parent’s decision to close their child support case. To gain a holistic understanding of the closure process, case closures are explored from the perspectives of both the caseworkers and parents through interviews, observations, and questionnaires with a total of 53 participants from varied backgrounds. Overall, this study found that displeasure and frustration stemming from interactions with the child support agency, misunderstandings of the way in which the child support system functions, and dissatisfaction with the amount of money received through the agency are leading factors in a parent’s decision to close the case.