Alimony received and paid: What is the impact on the risk of poverty after separation?

Household dissolution may be harmful for separated parents and their children. Single-parent households face significantly higher poverty risks compared to two-parent families, highlighting the vulnerability associated with limited income sources and greater costs (Bradshaw et al., 2025). This trend is consistent across countries.

Alimony might be important to alleviate poverty risk after separation. The transfer of alimony for children (also known as child maintenance or child support) is based on the principle that both parents remain financially responsible for their child, even after separation or divorce. This transfer between households aims at redistributing income from non-custodial to custodial parents due to unequal caregiving roles or to minimise the income gap between the two post-separation households, ensuring that the child does not face a significant drop in living standards when moving between them (...)