Church & Dwight Co., Inc. (NYSE:CHD) is about to trade ex-dividend in the next three days. Ex-dividend means that investors that purchase the stock on or after the 13th of August will not receive this dividend, which will be paid on the 1st of September.

Church & Dwight's next dividend payment will be US$0.24 per share, and in the last 12 months, the company paid a total of US$0.96 per share. Last year's total dividend payments show that Church & Dwight has a trailing yield of 1.0% on the current share price of $94.96. Dividends are an important source of income to many shareholders, but the health of the business is crucial to maintaining those dividends. We need to see whether the dividend is covered by earnings and if it's growing.

View our latest analysis for Church & Dwight

If a company pays out more in dividends than it earned, then the dividend might become unsustainable - hardly an ideal situation. That's why it's good to see Church & Dwight paying out a modest 32% of its earnings. Yet cash flows are even more important than profits for assessing a dividend, so we need to see if the company generated enough cash to pay its distribution. Luckily it paid out just 22% of its free cash flow last year.

It's positive to see that Church & Dwight's dividend is covered by both profits and cash flow, since this is generally a sign that the dividend is sustainable, and a lower payout ratio usually suggests a greater margin of safety before the dividend gets cut.

Click here to see the company's payout ratio, plus analyst estimates of its future dividends.

Have Earnings And Dividends Been Growing?

Companies with consistently growing earnings per share generally make the best dividend stocks, as they usually find it easier to grow dividends per share. If business enters a downturn and the dividend is cut, the company could see its value fall precipitously. For this reason, we're glad to see Church & Dwight's earnings per share have risen 14% per annum over the last five years. Earnings per share are growing rapidly and the company is keeping more than half of its earnings within the business; an attractive combination which could suggest the company is focused on reinvesting to grow earnings further. Fast-growing businesses that are reinvesting heavily are enticing from a dividend perspective, especially since they can often increase the payout ratio later.

Another key way to measure a company's dividend prospects is by measuring its historical rate of dividend growth. Church & Dwight has delivered 21% dividend growth per year on average over the past 10 years. It's great to see earnings per share growing rapidly over several years, and dividends per share growing right along with it.