This study is the first large-scale empirical account of child maintenance non-compliance in Sweden. The scheme explored is the guaranteed support system, i.e. when liable parents do not comply with their formal maintenance obligations as determined by the Swedish Social Insurance Agency (SSIA). The objective is to map out and describe the overall reasons why parents do not pay, as well as to explain why parents’ perceptions of their maintenance obligations diverge from those of the SSIA officials. To this end, the study utilises both quantitative descriptive analysis and qualitative thematic text analysis. The data were built on a unique body of material comprising over 700 court cases where liable parents disputed their maintenance obligations in Sweden’s 12 administrative courts, during 2014–2019. The quantitative results show that claiming economic inability and regular involvement in the care of children are the two most common arguments for non-payment. The qualitative analysis further suggests that the administrative tools and legal assessments designed to calculate payments to aid parents are in reality creating barriers, uncertainty, and distrust in the process. Consequently, the rules designed to protect children in lone-parent households are a factor contributing to non-payment by the other parent. The article concludes with reflections and public policy implications.

Child support payments are typically gendered and may be influenced by unequal bargaining positions. Nonetheless, child support is increasingly framed as a private responsibility, with parents expected to negotiate payments themselves. As court mediation expands, this expectation extends to legal disputes. This study examines whether power imbalances—measured as parents’ relative incomes—affect the monetary outcomes of child support court processes in Sweden, comparing cases resolved through in-court mediation versus court adjudication. Using a unique dataset of all Swedish court decisions involving resident parents suing liable parents for child support between 2016 and 2020 (n¼327), the results show that filing for child support typically results in low payments and high costs, offering a poor deal for resident parents. High-income liable parents secure comparatively favorable outcomes relative to both resident parents and lower-income liable parents, indicating that absolute financial resources drive bargaining power in court disputes.

Across the Western world, joint legal and physical custody is increasingly becoming the default post-separation arrangement. While family policy and law encourage such arrangements, they may not suit every situation. In child-custody court disputes, courts must consider whether sole legal custody is the best alternative for the child in each case. Building on a unique dataset of 535 Swedish child-custody court decisions, this study examines how parents justify child-custody claims in court and which argumentative patterns are most likely to result in a court order on sole legal custody. Deservingness theory (van Oorschot, 2000) serves as an analytical framework for structuring parents’ arguments. Latent Class Analysis identifies five distinct classes of court cases—referred to as ‘dispute contexts’—based on how parents invoke different arguments: Victim-Offender, Mutual High-Conflict, Parenting Capacity Concerns, Lone Carer, and (Re)-Litigating Non-Resident Parents. Regression analyses suggest that applicants are most likely to be awarded sole custody in the Victim-Offender and Lone Carer contexts, and less likely in the Mutual High-Conflict context.

This study contributes a novel theoretical and empirical approach to the understanding of the barriers to the realisation of children's rights to participate in custody proceedings. Drawing on Manning and Hawkins’ (1990) frame-analytical perspective on legal decision-making, it examines whether children’s participation is influenced by the context, or framing, of the inter-parental conflict underlying the custody dispute. The data is based on a representative sample of child custody court cases resolved in 35 out of Sweden’s 48 district courts in 2021 (n = 535). Results show that children’s participation varies significantly across dispute contexts. Children’s views are most likely to be reported in contexts characterised by high levels of inter-parental conflict and mutual accusations, and least likely to be included in contexts marked by an asymmetric ability–risk dynamic, in which the applicant parent is framed as the child’s primary caregiver and the respondent parent as largely uninvolved in the child’s life.