Financial Support For Single Parents In Caring For Their Children: Private Child Support And Social Assistance

Public assistance in the Caribbean generally does not include special provisions for sole parents. Instead, such families—if they are fortunate—receive support through the limited general public assistance schemes.  The amount of benefits in Caribbean countries is likely to be lower than in developed countries in both absolute and relative terms.

This short paper examines international evidence of the relationship between child support payments and benefit payments. In particular, it examines the extent to which the receipt of child support payments affects child benefit (social assistance) payments to single parents (usually women) living with and caring for children.

UN Women and UNICEF through the UN Joint Programme on Social Protection being implemented in the Eastern Caribbean, is contributing to policy and legal reform processes, and the strengthening of national capacities to establish transparent and evidence-based, targetted social safety net services to poor populations, while ensuring child and gender sensitivity.