Demography

Around 16 per cent of families with children in the Netherlands are headed by a lone parent; this is in the lower range for the countries in this study. The Netherlands has a high marriage rate and a divorce rate in the middle range. Only 13 per cent of births are to unmarried mothers, and the rate of teenage births is the lowest of all the countries studied.

Provision for Lone Parents

There are no special benefits for lone parents, other than those paid as incentives to return to work. Lone parents do not have to be available for work while they have a child under the age of five. Social assistance (which can include help with mortgage interest payments) is provided by the municipality under the General Assistance Act, until recently at the level of 90 per cent of the minimum wage, and is largely financed by central government. It can be paid as a supplement to low earnings for up to two years, at the discretion of the municipality. Around two-thirds of lone mothers receive social assistance. In a context of low rates of single parenthood and low female labour force participation, policy in the Netherlands has been characterised by its readiness to guarantee public income rather than compel mothers of young children to work. This may change with increasing pressures for cutbacks in welfare. As from January 1996, changes in the structure of benefit rates mean that central government will only pay 70 per cent of the minimum wage for lone parents, and the remaining 20 per cent will only be paid if the claimant can prove his or her costs are not shared with anyone else.

Calculation for Child Support

The father of a child both inside or outside marriage is legally obliged to support his child. Parents are encouraged to reach voluntary arrangements for child support. Where they are unable to agree, amounts of child support can be decided by the District Court. They do this using a set of tables, known as the TREMA tables, which contain complex formulae for the assessment of maintenance. A number of factors are taken into account in assessing the capacity to pay of both the resident and non-resident parent:

• assessable income is calculated by deducting amounts for living expenses, which are based on social assistance rates, from gross income;
• for the non-resident parent allowance is made for the costs of setting up a new home and the costs of contact with the children;
• where the non-resident parent has a second family, assessable income is reduced by around 50 per cent to reflect an explicit principle that people should be free to form new relationships;
• partners of non-resident parents are expected to contribute to the maintenance of their own natural children, whether living with them or elsewhere, and may also be assessed as partially liable for their partner's children if their relationship is in effect that of a parent;
• where the resident parent has entered a new relationship, the decision about liability for maintenance between a step-parent and a non-resident parent is based on an assessment of the relationship between the child and the non-resident parent, including such issues as whose surname the child bears and how frequently contact occurs.

Because of all the complex factors which are taken into account, it is difficult to provide an illustrative example, however, £78 per child per month is a typical amount of maintenance.

Where a lone parent claims means-tested benefits, voluntary payments which are too low may be overturned and replaced with a payment calculated by the National Bureau for the Recovery of Child Maintenance (known as the LBIO), again based on the TREMA tables. Decisions made by the District Court, however, will not be altered.

Minimum Amount

There is no set minimum amount which must be paid by a non-resident parent.

Enforcement

Automatic payment (standing orders) are usually made from the bank (and set up as part of divorce proceedings). A Central Registration for citizens makes it possible to trace absent fathers, because as soon as someone appears in a municipal registry that person also appears on the central system. Levels of compliance with the new arrangements are described as good, and do not appear to vary significantly according to whether the parents were married, although there is no published quantitative data as yet.

Where maintenance payments have been missed at least once in the previous six months, or where the parents request this service, maintenance can be collected by the LBIO. This agency was created as part of the child support reforms in 1993; maintenance had previously been collected by the 19 local offices of the child welfare office. Non-resident parents are charged a collection fee equal to ten per cent of their assessed child support liability, as an incentive to make private arrangements.

Guaranteed Payments

There is no system of advance maintenance in the Netherlands. Means-tested benefits are the only type of replacement income for a lone parent who does not receive maintenance.

Current Issues

The child support system which is now in place was introduced because so few non-resident parents were paying maintenance and because resident parents were not taking action to secure maintenance. It is generally regarded as effective, and appears to have generated very little debate, although as it has only been fully operational since January 1997, it may be too early to judge.