Demography

Lone-parent families account for around one in five families with children in Norway. Norway has a low marriage rate and a divorce rate in the middle range. Over 40 per cent of births are to unmarried women, but most are not to very young women: the rate of teenage births is 17 per thousand, above that for Sweden, France and the Netherlands, but below the other countries in the study.

Provision for Lone Parents

Lone parents receive additional child benefit (as if they had one extra child) and also have special tax allowances. Approximately two-thirds of lone parents in Norway are in paid employment; many work part-time. Lone parents who are unable to work because of childcare problems are entitled to receive Transitional Benefit; around a third also claim social assistance in addition to Transitional Benefit. Claimants of Transitional Benefit are required to use the Maintenance Contribution Collection Agency. Transitional Benefit can be paid for a maximum of three years (or five years if the resident parent is in full-time education); before 1998 it was available to any lone parent with a child aged under ten. Maintenance paid above the level of the advance maintenance payment (see below) is deducted from Transitional Benefit at the rate o 70 per cent (previously 100 per cent).

Calculation for Child Support

From 1956, there were two systems of child maintenance, for married and unmarried parents. Divorcing parents were dealt with by the courts, whilst unmarried mothers were the responsibility of the local authority. The Children Act of 1981 equalised the position between married and unmarried parents, and brought cases under the jurisdiction of the local authority, although parents could still go to court if they wished. Awards were discretionary, and there were no set guidelines, with the result that the assessment of maintenance often took up to a year. From 1989, set percentages of income have been used.

Parents are free to make voluntary arrangements for child support, provided that the sum agreed is at least the amount of the guaranteed maintenance payment, which in January 1995 was set at around £70 per month. Where the parents cannot reach an agreement, parents can use the Maintenance Contribution Collection Agency; nine out of ten parents use this Agency. Since 1989, child maintenance has been assessed as a simple percentage of the non-resident parent's income:

• 11% for 1 child
• 18% for 2 children
• 24% for 3 children
• 28% for 4 or more children

The amounts are currently based on the income of the non-resident parent; the income of the resident parent is not taken into account. Where there is a second family the percentages are divided. A parent with one resident and one non-resident child is liable for 9% of income for each. Where the child lives equally with both parents, or where the income of the non-resident parent is very low, these percentages are not applied. Maintenance for those aged 18 or over and still in education is also decided on a discretionary basis. Half of non-resident parents pay maintenance for one child; the average payment of maintenance for one child in 1995 was £94 per month.

Minimum Amount

There is no minimum amount which must be paid by all non-resident parents regardless of income.

Guaranteed Payments

Unmarried mothers have been guaranteed a minimum level of child support since the 1950s. Advance payments of maintenance have been available to all lone parents since 1989. The amount was around £70 per month as at January 1995. The Maintenance Contribution Collection Agency will then seek to recover the money from the non-resident parent. Maintenance was previously collected by the municipalities but the recovery rate was poor. The new Agency is unpopular but widely regarded as effective; around 80% of advance payments are recovered.

Current Issues

There has been a debate about the extent to which contact arrangements influence the payment of child support, but there is no hard data on this issue. A recent proposal to 'modernise' child support by, among other things, taking into account the income of both resident and non-resident parents and linking maintenance and contact more explicitly, was defeated. The new government is working on revised proposals.