Is Idaho’s Punishment For Late Child Support Sexist?

Yesterday, we shared an announcement about child support made by the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare. In that press release, the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare revealed a new punishment for parents that are behind on their child support payments.

In an effort to combat a $130 million problem, they revealed if you're behind on your child support, you will be unable to hunt or fish in Idaho.

Your feedback is always welcome!

We asked you to share your thoughts with us on yesterday's story and we're continuing to see emails come through as we write this article.

We received various responses about the story yesterday ranging from support for the punishment to criticisms of the new punishment.

"Hands down great idea! My X owes me 30,000 dollars," Sylva told us in an email.

"He did not work legitimate jobs or own anything so they could not take from his wages. With that said though, I only got 250.00 a month for two kids which is very low."

Another reader, Kiana, also shared her support with us via email: "[It's] a start but stronger requirements need to be added to this new policy."

Not everyone is a fan!

We also received some responses from critics of the punishment.

"The Idaho constitution lays out the RIGHT to hunt and fish," Dennis said in an email to us, "Where in the hell did a government agency like Health and Welfare get the ability and authority to override the state constitution?"

Dennis even shared Section 23 of the Idaho constitution with us to back his point. We received other responses similar to David but there was one in particular that stood out to us.

Is this email accurate about the hunting/fishing ban for parents behind on child support? Is it targeting men?

We did our best to find the statistics revealing what percentage of women and men hunt/fish in Idaho. We found some interesting numbers to keep in mind as we ponder whether or not this child support punishment is sexist.

While we struggled to find data specific to Idaho, we did find that 10 to 15% of all hunters are women according to the NRA Hunters Leadership Forum and Idaho Fish and Game. Also, the number of female hunters grew from 2,464,000 in 2010 to 3,924,00 in 2019, an increase of 59.3% according to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.

When it comes to fishing, Idaho Fish and Game conducted a survey and found that 73% of their participants were men while 27% were women. According to Western Bass, "19.8 million women went fishing in 2022" and 36% of all anglers in the US are made up of women.

What do you think?

We'll continue to search for more concrete data but based on what we've seen, it does appear that men hunt and fish a bit more than women... should the Idaho Department of Health & Welfare consider this when enforcing this new punishment?

Let us know your thoughts here!