19% of Child Support Beneficiaries are Over 18

Our child support lawyers in Barrie, Orillia and Newmarket have helped countless clients with child support arrangements. Most people associate child support with grade school-aged children, but it certainly applies to children over 18, as well.

In fact, a report from Statistics Canada states that about 81 percent of Canada’s child support beneficiaries were 18 years or under, while the remaining 19 percent were over 18 years of age.

The median age of child support beneficiaries was 14 years. In total, about 113,000 were enrolled in a maintenance enforcement program (MEP) in the nine reporting jurisdictions as of March 31, 2011.

MEPs register cases, process payments, as well as monitor and enforce cases. This might include enrollment processes, handling and registration of payments, client responsibilities and case closure.

Their data also shows that:

• Children were the only beneficiaries in the vast majority (93 percent) of the cases where the type of beneficiary was known
• A spouse was the only beneficiary in another 4 percent of cases
• Both spouse and children were the beneficiaries in 3 percent of cases
• The payors were almost exclusively men (96 percent)
• Recipients were almost exclusively women (96 percent)

If you have any questions about the process, please don’t hesitate to contact one of our child support lawyers in Barrie, Orillia and Newmarket at any time. If you are looking for a divorce lawyer in Newmarket, any of our lawyers would be glad to assist you.