Tanya A. Gomez 
University of Rhode Island
Major: Psychology
Mentor: Walter L. Ellis, Ph.D., Assistant Professor, Social Work
Urban/Rural Differences in the Application of Child Support Guidelines
With approximately half of all first marriages ending in divorce, child support and child support enforcement have recently become popular issues. In an attempt to restructure existing laws concerning child support and ensure fair awards, Congress passed The Family Support Act of 1988. The Family Support Act of 1988 mandated states to use presumptive child support guidelines when setting child support levels. The purpose of this research project is to ascertain whether or not there are urban/rural differences in the application of child support guidelines.
In order to do so, divorce case data involving minor children was collected from two county courthouses in the state of New Hampshire; Carroll County, a rural area consisting of mainly small towns and Strafford County, an urban, metropolitan area. Being that the Northern part of New Hampshire is rural, it is considered one of the poorer economic clusters.
It is hypothesized, therefore, that there are more deviations from the guidelines in the rural county than in the urban one.
