Child Support Compliance In South Korea: Understanding the Factors In a New Country Context

Background and Purpose: This study examines factors associated with child support compliance among divorced single mothers in South Korea. Although Korea introduced reforms in the late 2000s requiring child support orders in divorce cases and established a national agency to provide assistance in enforcing the orders, limited evidence exists on whether these orders are paid as ordered (i.e., compliance). Guided by the theory and the research from the United States and other Western countries, this study investigates patterns of child support compliance in Korea and identifies factors associated with compliance.

Methods: Data are drawn from the 2018 Korean Survey of Single Parents (KSSP), a nationally representative cross-sectional dataset containing detailed information on child support orders and payments, and other demographic and economic characteristics of single parents. The analysis focuses on divorced custodial mothers, as unmarried single parenthood is relatively rare in Korea, and child support receipt may be significantly different between custodial mothers and fathers. Child support compliance is measured as the ratio of support received by the custodial mother to support ordered in the previous year. The study first examines the patterns of child support compliance and then applies Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) to examine factors associated with compliance. Additionally, relative importance analyses are used to assess the extent to which different factors contribute to explaining variation in compliance.

Results: Among 1,232 divorced custodial mothers, 34% reported having a legal child support order. Among those with orders, 63% received the full amount in the past year, while 28% received no payments. The relatively high rate of full compliance is notable given that the formal child support system was created in Korea relatively recently. The SEM results indicate that relationship factors—such as recency of divorce and frequency of contact between parents—are strong predictors of child support compliance. Additionally, mothers with health problems or those not receiving government assistance are more likely to receive child support, suggesting that noncustodial fathers may respond to the custodial parent’s economic needs. In contrast, noncustodial fathers’ education and employment are associated with the likelihood of having a child support order but not with compliance.

Conclusions and Implications: The study findings suggest that, despite recent policy reforms, many custodial mothers in Korea lack formal child support orders. However, among those with orders, the compliance is relatively high. The findings highlight the importance of relational dynamics and contextual factors in shaping child support outcomes. They suggest that policy approaches to improving compliance should be tailored to specific cultural and institutional contexts rather than directly modeled on systems from other countries.