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Child Support Economics Expert
IRWIN GARFINKEL
 Irwin
Garfinkel is the Mitchell
I. Ginsberg Professor of Contemporary
Urban Problems and the chair
of the
Social Indicators Survey Center
at the Columbia University School
of Social Work. He was the director
of the Institute
for Research on Poverty
(1975-1980) and the School of
Social Work (1982-1984) at the
University of Wisconsin. Between
1980 and 1990, he was the principal
investigator of the Wisconsin
child support study.
Garfinkel has
authored or co-authored over
100 scientific articles and
eleven books on poverty, income
transfers, program evaluation,
and child support including
Single Mothers and Their
Children: A New American Dilemma,
Assuring Child Support: An
Extension of Social Security,
Social Policies for Children,
and most recently, Fathers
Under Fire: The Revolution in
Child Support Enforcement.
His research on the old child
support system and proposal
for a new child support assurance
system helped shape Wisconsin's
pioneering child support reforms,
which in turn helped to shape
the Child Support Act of 1984,
the Family Support Act of 1988,
and the Personal Responsibility
and Work Opportunity Act (sic)
of 1996. Garfinkel has also
consulted with numerous other
state governments in the US
and the governments of Great
Britain, Australia, and Sweden.
Garfinkel currently
has 3 major research projects:
1) Fragile Families and Child
Well-being, 2) Welfare Reform
and Devolution in New York City,
and Child Support Enforcement
and Child Well-being. Fragile
Families is a longitudinal study
of unwed parents and their children.
The study breaks new ground
by providing previously unavailable
information on: (1) child well-being
in these fragile families, (2)
the economic and social conditions
of unwed parents, especially
fathers, (3) relationships in
fragile families (father-mother,
parent-child, extended family),
and (4) the role of community
services and government programs
in the lives of fragile families.
The study follows a new birth
cohort of 5000 parents and children
that will be representative
of non-marital births in cities
with 200,000 or more inhabitants.
A control group of married parents
will also be followed. The Welfare
Reform study utilizes The New
York City Social Indicators
Survey, a semi-annual telephone
survey of a representative sample
of New York city residents.
The Child Support Enforcement
study utilizes a variety of
existing national data sets
to estimate the effects of child
support enforcement on child
support payments, other behaviors
by mothers and fathers, and
ultimately child well-being.
808 McVickar
Columbia University School of
Social Work
622 West 113th Street
New York, NY 10025
Tel: 212.854.8489
Fax: 212.854.2700
ig3@columbia.edu
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