Fathers Involvement in Fragile Families: Patterns and Implications for Children

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Fathers Involvement in Fragile
FamiliesPatterns and Implications for Children

• Marcy Carlson
• University of Wisconsin-Madison
• January 16, 2009
• CSDE WCPC
• University of Washington

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Background

• Major family changes in past half century
• Divorce/remarriage
• Nonmarital childbearing
• Diminished parental resources (time and money) to
  children, especially from fathers
• Limited attention to unmarried fathers, even
  though a large and growing demographic group

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Unmarried Births as a Percent of All U.S. Births
70.7
49.9
38.5
26.6
Source National Center for Health Statistics
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Key Questions about Unmarried Fathers

• What are unmarried fathers characteristics and
  capabilities?
• What are fathers relationships with mothers?
• How much and how are fathers involved with
  children after a nonmarital birth?
• Is fathers greater involvement beneficial for
  childrens wellbeing?

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Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study(PIs
McLanahan Garfinkel)

• Birth cohort study in large U.S. cities in late
  1990s
• Nearly 5,000 births (3,712 nonmarital 1,186
  marital)
• 20 U.S. cities gt 200,000 population
• 75 hospitals
• Baseline interviews with mothers and fathers (at
  birth), 1998-2000
• Follow-up core surveys at 1, 3, and 5 years
  in-home child assessments at 3 and 5 years

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Study Features

• High response rates
• 87 of unmarried mothers at birth
• 75 of unmarried fathers at birth 86 at least
  once
• Of mothers interviewed at baseline, 87
  interviewed at 5 years
• Multi-method (surveys, observational assessments,
  qualitative interviews, medical records,
  neighborhood data)
• Couple data and data on missing fathers

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Baseline Father Response Rates by Relationship
Status
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What are Unmarried Fathers Characteristics and
Capabilities?
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Parental Characteristics, by Marital Status at
Birth
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Characteristics (contd)
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Unmarried Parents Attitudes at Birth
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What Are Fathers Relationships with Mothers, at
Birth and over Time?
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Relationship Status of Unmarried Parents at Time
of Birth
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Relationship Status of Unmarried Parents, by
Race/Ethnicity
White non-Hispanics
Hispanics
Black non-Hispanics
Visiting
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Cohabiting
37
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Couple Relationship Stability
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How Involved Are Biological Fathers after a
Nonmarital Birth?
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Unmarried Father Involvement at Birth
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Fathers Involvement at Child Age 3, by Marital
Status at Birth
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Fathers Involvement at Child Age 5, by Marital
Status at Birth
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Is Greater Father Involvement Beneficial for
Childrens Wellbeing?
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Conceptual Framing

• Parenting is important for childrens health,
  development and wellbeing growing evidence that
  father involvement beneficial for kids
• Resident fathers typically more involved
• Proximity increases interaction
• Package deal of couple relationship and
  parenting
• Resident father involvement may be more
  beneficial for children
• Reinforces mothers parenting and enhances social
  capital in the family

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Previous Research on Father Involvement (FI)

• Resident fathers Strong evidence of positive
  association between FI and child wellbeing
• Non-resident fathers
• Early studies showed little effect of
  father-child contact on child wellbeing
• Growing (but inconsistent) evidence that
  high-quality FI is beneficial for children
• Most studies focus primarily on divorced fathers
  and older children
• Benefits of FI may be moderated by fathers own
  social-behavioral characteristics

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This Research

• Examines how involvement by fathers (across
  multiple measures) after a nonmarital birth is
  linked to child behavioral problems
• Analyzes resident and non-resident fathers
  separately
• Considers social/psychological characteristics
  that may moderate how FI linked to behavior
• Uses multiple modeling techniques

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Father Involvement Measures

• Time
• Non-resident Number of days father saw child
  past month (0-30)
• Spending 1 hours/day with child (1never to
  5every day or nearly every day)
• Engagement (if saw child past month)
• Father-child activities past week (4 items), e.g.
  read stories (0-7 days) both mother and father
  reports

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Father Involvement Measures (cont.)

• Responsibility
• Shared responsibility for child/household tasks
  (3 items), e.g., Takes child places s/he needs
  to go such as daycare or the doctor,
• Looks after child when mother needs to do
  things
• (1never to 4often)

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Co-Parenting Measure

• Cooperation in parenting (6 items), e.g.,
• Talk with father about problems that come up
  with raising child,
• Father supports you in the way you want to raise
  child
• (1never to 4always)

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Child Behavioral Problems

• 13 Items drawn from 2000 Child Behavior Checklist
  (CBCL) 7 externalizing, 6 internalizing
• Reported by mothers 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat or
  sometimes true), 2 (very/often true)
• Items summed to create overall score, range 0-26
  (higher scores, more problems)
• Given at 5-year core survey (and 3-year in-home
  interview, 71 of larger sample)

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Other Independent Variables

• Father demographics Age, race/ethnicity, foreign
  born, lived with both parents at age 15,
  education, in fair/poor health
• Father social-psychological characteristics
  Fathering attitudes, gender role attitudes,
  religious attendance, has substance problem,
  suggested abortion, has child by previous
  partner, ever incarcerated, at risk of
  depression, cognitive score, impulsivity score
• Mother characteristics Education, different
  race/ethnicity from father, substance problem, at
  risk of depression, religious attendance,
  cognitive score
• Child characteristics Child is boy, difficult
  temperament

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Means on Father Involvement at 3 Years
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Mean Behavioral Scores (Range0-26)
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Methods

• OLS regression
• 3-yr FI ? 5-yr behavior
• 5-yr FI ? 5-yr behavior
• Random effects
• Fixed effects
• Cross-lagged structural equation models
• Multiple imputation used to fill in missing
  covariates (but not FI or behavior)
• ? All models run separately for resident and
  non-resident fathers

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Cross-Lagged Structural Eq. Model
Year 3
Year 5
FI3
FI5
a
c
Co-variates
d
BEHAV3
BEHAV5
b
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Results OLS, 3yr?5yr
Mean behav score6.1, SD4.6
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Results OLS, 5yr?5yr
Mean behav score6.1, SD4.6
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Results Random Effects
Mean behav score6.1, SD4.6
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Results Fixed Effects
Mean behav score6.1, SD4.6
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Results Cross-lagged SEM
Mean behav score6.1, SD4.6
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Moderating Factors Residential Fathers
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Moderating Factors Non-Res. Fathers
plt.10, plt.05, plt.01
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Summary of Findings

• Resident fathers Moderate evidence that father
  involvement linked to lower behavior problems
• Father-child activities, shared responsibility
  and co-parenting seem to be most important
• Primary direction is from FI to behavior (not
  reverse)

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Summary of Findings

• Non-resident fathers Little evidence that father
  involvement is associated with child behavior
  exception is co-parenting
• Social/psychological factors as moderators
• Mixed evidence Pattern as expected but few
  statistically significant interactions
• May be most important for incarceration history

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Limitations

• Use of mothers reports
• Shared method variance
• Mothers may under-report fathers involvement,
  especially for non-resident fathers
• Fathers may be involved in ways not measured here
  (child support, calls/letters, etc.)
• Causal inference and unobserved heterogeneity

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Implications and Future Research

• Lack of beneficial effects of non-resident FI may
  contribute to growing inequality among children
  (McLanahan 2004 2008)
• Wary of drawing policy implications we need to
  know more
• Why no effect for non-resident fathers?
• Nature of the involvement
• Characteristics of the men
• Perhaps effects of non-resident FI only emerge at
  older child ages

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Funders of the Fragile Families Study
National Institute of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD), California HealthCare
Foundation, Commonwealth Fund, Ford Foundation,
Foundation for Child Development, Fund for New
Jersey, William T. Grant Foundation, Healthcare
Foundation of New Jersey, William and Flora
Hewlett Foundation, Hogg Foundation, Christina A.
Johnson Endeavor Foundation, Kronkosky Charitable
Foundation, Leon Lowenstein Foundation, John D.
and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, A. L.
Mailman Family Foundation, Charles S. Mott
Foundation, National Science Foundation, David
and Lucile Packard Foundation, Public Policy
Institute of California, Robert Wood Johnson
Foundation, St. Davids Hospital Foundation, St.
Vincent Hospital and Health Services, and U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services (ACF and
ASPE).
I am grateful for funding for this paper from
NICHD (K01HD042776).
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Thank You!
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Extra Slides
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Father Involvement 1-3 Years after Nonmarital
Birth
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MPF of Couples, by Marital Status at Birth
Married Parents (n1,061)
Unmarried Parents (n3,099)
Note Frequencies are weighted Ns are unweighted.
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Number of Fathers among Mothers with 2 Births at
Baseline, by Marital Status
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