The Impact of Paternity Leave on Fathers’ Future Earnings

Using Norwegian registry data, we investigate the effect of paternity leave on fathers’ long-term earnings. If the paternity leave increased long-term father involvement, then we should expect a reduction in fathers’ long-term earnings as they shift time and effort from market to home production. For identification, we use the Norwegian introduction of a paternity-leave quota in 1993, reserving four weeks of the total of 42 weeks of paid parental leave exclusively for the father. The introduction of the paternity-leave quota led to a sharp increase in rates of leave-taking for fathers. We estimate a difference-in-differences model that exploits differences in fathers’ exposure to the paternity-leave quota by the child’s age and year of observation. Our analysis suggests that four weeks of paternity leave during the child’s first year decreases fathers’ future earnings, an effect that persists through our last point of observation, when the child is 5 years old. A battery of robustness tests supports our results.     

Paternal child care and children's development

This paper uses the NLSY-Child data to assess the effects on cognitive and social-emotional development of father care as a child care arrangement among children in two-parent families with working mothers. Our results show that father care for infants is no better or worse than other types of arrangements. However, toddlers in non-paternal modes of child care (e.g., relatives, family day care or center care) have slightly better cognitive outcomes than those whose fathers provided care. Although our analyses do not provide a definitive explanation for this finding, there is a substantial influx of fathers in our data who provide child care in years 2 and 3 and these fathers appear compositionally different from fathers who provided care during a child's infancy. In particular, there is some indication that these fathers who are newly providing care during a child's toddler years may be temporary care providers due to changing economic circumstances. The research was supported by NICHD grant #HD30944. Responsible editor: Deborah Cobb-Clark.     

Altruism Within the Family: A Comparison of Father and Mother Using Life Happiness and Life Satisfaction

Studies on intra-household allocation of resources show that exogenous increase in mothers’ income has larger effect on children’s outcomes than the same increase in fathers’ income, suggesting gender differences may exist in parents’ altruism towards their children. Using self-reported life happiness and life satisfaction, we investigate the differences by gender in mutual altruism between father and child as well as mother and child dyads in Singapore. We found that mutual altruism exists between mother and child, but not between father and child. These findings are robust to the measure of self-reported well-being. Further, we find that gender difference in altruism of fathers and mothers is not driven by the difference in the extent of future old age support desired by fathers and mothers from their children.     

The Role of Ethnicity in Father Absence and Children’s School Enrollment in Guatemala

Despite the historical prevalence of single motherhood in Latin America and its rise in recent years, there is limited knowledge on the magnitude and consequences of father absence as experienced by children. Using a nationally representative sample from the 2002 Guatemalan Reproductive Health Survey, this study provides unprecedented documentation on the national prevalence of children’s separate living arrangements from their biological fathers and nonresident fathers’ paternity establishment and child support payments. Using random-intercept models, this study further demonstrates that father absence has a negative effect on the school enrollment of indigenous children of both sexes and Ladino male children. Increased poverty in father-absent households explains a smaller proportion of this adverse effect on indigenous children, suggesting that their fathers, when present, play a stronger social, rather than economic, role compared to their Ladino counterparts. Finally, child support payments attenuate the negative effects of father absence, particularly among Ladino male children.     

Child gender and father involvement in fragile families

In this article, we use data from the first two waves of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the effects of child gender on father involvement and to determine if gender effects differ by parents' marital status. We examine several indicators of father involvement, including whether the father acknowledges "ownership" of the child, whether the parents live together when the child is one year old, and whether the father provides financial support when the child is one year old. We find some evidence that child gender is associated with unmarried father involvement around the time of the child's birth: sons born to unmarried parents are more likely than daughters to receive the father's surname, especially if the mother has no other children. However, one year after birth, we find very little evidence that child gender is related to parents' living arrangements or the amount of time or money fathers invest in their children. In contrast, and consistent with previous research, fathers who are married when their child is born are more likely to live with a son than with a daughter one year after birth. This pattern supports an interpretation of child gender effects based on parental beliefs about the importance of fathers for the long-term development of sons.     

The Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples

This paper uses Australian data from a national representative sample of Australian couples having their first child. Using data from before and after the birth of the child on a range of variables, including economic resources, gender attitudes, workplace flexibility, and availability of non-parental childcare, we first model the factors are associated with the decision to remain in work or not after the birth of the first child. The main finding here is that childbirth has a major impact on mothers’ paid work-time, whereas for fathers it has very little impact. Factors that are related to a mother’s decision to remain in work or not include the absolute (but not relative) pay of each parent, the father’s workplace flexibility, and paid parental leave available to the mother. We then model the factors that govern, for those mothers remaining in paid work, how much paid work they undertake. We find that changing employers is related to mothers’ work hours, as are absolute post-birth salaries, as is the relative pay of each partner. As with the decision to work or not, the availability of paid parental leave to the mother is significantly related to the amount of work-time for those mothers that do continue to work. Similarly, the use of external childcare is positively associated with maternal work hours. Finally, we model the factors that determine childcare time allocation and find that for neither parent do pre-birth economic resources significantly affect childcare time, once a decision about basic work patterns has been made. Gender role attitudes affect childcare time decisions, unlike work time decisions.     

A brief report on hope in peace and war,and in good times and bad

The Hope Index is presented as a measure sensitive to significant cultural changes. In this set of case studies, hope was measured in 1988, the weekend of the Gulf ground invasion in 1991, and in the recession of 1992. Hope for peace increased the weekend of the invasion of Iraq during the Gulf War in comparison to hope measured in 1988. Hope for peace increased in college students, in their mothers, and in their fathers. Hope for increased national productivity increased during the 1992 recession, as well as during the Gulf invasion, but only for mothers and fathers. The increased hope and expectation of peace and increased hope and expectations for productivity are discussed in terms of a need theory of hope, the availability heuristic, and in terms of coping strategies.     

Flexible Work Hours and Other Job Factors in Parental Time with Children

Flexible working hours are typically seen to be advantageous to working parents, as the flexible hours more easily allow responsibilities of care and employment be balanced. But do flexible work hours actually mean that parents can spend more time with their children? This article explores this for parents of young children in Australia. The analyses use the time use diaries of children in the two cohorts of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), from the first wave of the study in 2004. The study children in each cohort were aged about one year old and 4–5 years old. For each child, a weekday and weekend diary were completed, giving 5,579 weekday diaries and 4,478 weekend diaries. The diaries captured details of the children’s activities and of who they were with in each 15 min period of a day, and so allowed calculation of the total amount of time the child was with their mother and with their father. Multivariate analyses were used to determine whether amounts of mother-child and father-child time varied according to flexibility of work hours, taking account also of other job characteristics, family and child characteristics. The analyses showed that flexible work hours had only weak independent relationships with mothers’ and fathers’ time with children. Inasmuch as flexible hours are beneficial for parents, it appears that this is related to their ability to distribute their time between work and family time, rather than giving them more time with children.     

Fathers and infant health and survival in Ende,a rural district of Eastern Indonesia

Studies have shown that child survival can be greater when fathers are more highly involved in infant care than when they are less involved. This paper investigates fathers’ and paternal grandmothers’ knowledge and experiences relating to infants’ survival in a rural district of Eastern Indonesia, a context for which such information is lacking. Twenty fathers or replacement relatives participated in in-depth interviews. Most had very limited knowledge of the danger signs of childhood illness. None of participants had received child health-related information from local health personnel. Male-dominated forms of decision-making in relation to infant health care are the norm. Inadequacies in the child health services, such as difficulties in accessing health facilities, health personnel unavailability and discomfort during delivery, remain as challenges. Fathers appear to rely largely on their wives for their infant health and survival knowledge and have little involvement with their infants. They see their roles in terms of providing economic support and basic care for their infants. Grandmothers are seen as a major source of health information by fathers, but have limited knowledge of infant survival. The findings demonstrate a need for child health promotion programs and campaigns, including the safe motherhood program, to include fathers as well as mothers, in order to increase their awareness of infant survival and involvement in infant raising, and to persuade them to allow mothers greater scope to make child health-seeking decisions, especially when children require emergency treatment.     

Economic Development,Gender Inequality,and Demographic Outcomes: Evidence from India

This article examines the determinants of fertility, child mortality, and female disadvantage in child survival in India, using a district‐level panel data set linking 1981 and 1991 censuses. The results question the dominant view that variables directly related to women's agency (specifically, the female literacy rate and the female labor force participation rate) have played the crucial roles here. Instead, variables reflecting the general level of development and modernization are shown to have had the greatest effect in reducing fertility and child mortality during the period of the study. Both economic development and women's agency are seen to have had significant effects in reducing the female disadvantage in child survival. The results suggest, however, that with continued economic development, the two women's agency variables lose their significance in influencing this disadvantage. The policy implications of these findings are considered.     

Divorced Fathers’ Proximity and Children’s Long-Run Outcomes: Evidence From Norwegian Registry Data

This study examines the link between divorced nonresident fathers’ proximity and children’s long-run outcomes, using high-quality data from Norwegian population registers. We follow (from birth to young adulthood) each of 15,992 children born into married households in Norway in the years 1975–1979 whose parents divorced during his or her childhood. We observe the proximity of the child to his or her father in each year following the divorce and link proximity to educational and economic outcomes for the child in young adulthood, controlling for a wide range of observable characteristics of the parents and the child. Our results show that closer proximity to the father following a divorce has, on average, a modest negative association with offspring’s outcomes in young adulthood. The negative associations are stronger among children of highly educated fathers. Complementary Norwegian survey data show that highly educated fathers report more post-divorce conflict with their ex-wives as well as more contact with their children (measured in terms of the number of nights that the child spends at the father’s house). Consequently, the father’s relocation to a more distant location following the divorce may shelter the child from disruptions in the structure of the child’s life as they split time between households and/or from post-divorce interparental conflict.     

A Weighted Multidimensional Index of Child Well-Being Which Incorporates Children’s Individual Perceptions

It has been a decade since a landmark piece of work on child well-being measurement based on a summary index was developed in the United States, the Index of Child and Youth Well-Being. Several research studies, both in the U.S. and Europe, followed on from this work. Despite these studies’ valuable contribution, scope exists for further improvements at the methodological level. In the present paper we draw the methodological basis for a new, micro-based summary child well-being index in which children’s views on their own well-being assume a central role and distinct weights (based on the children’s perceptions) to each component that is included in the index are used. Based on 914 pairs of responses of Portuguese children and their carers, the newly proposed index was tested vis-à-vis other methodologies. The econometric estimations show that the significance of all potential well-being determinants (e.g., age, school cycle, mother’s and father’s level of education) remains the same across the distinct methods of calculation of child well-being indexes. However, the consideration of subjective components (degrees of importance and weights) allowed to evidence that the most relevant determinants of child well-being are the set of variables related to the child’s parents, namely education and professional status. In particular, when compared to their counterparts, children whose fathers have higher education degrees reveal an increased overall well-being by around 25 %, whereas children whose fathers are unemployed present a decreased well-being by around 11 %.     

Quality of Parent–Child Relationship, Family Conflict, Peer Pressure, and Drinking Behaviors of Adolescents in an Asian Context: The Case of Singapore

Analyzing data from a probability sample representative of secondary school students in Singapore (N = 1,599), this study examined the independent impact between the quality of mother–child relationship, the quality of father–child relationship and family conflict on the frequency of drinking and drunkenness, and whether each dyadic parent–child relationship quality and family conflict moderate the effect of direct peer pressure on the frequency of drinking and drunkenness among Singaporean adolescents. A series of ordered logit analyses revealed the following results: The quality of father–child relationship had no main effect on either drinking behavior, yet had a moderating effect on the association between direct peer pressure and drunkenness, with the stronger effect of direct peer pressure for adolescents on good terms with their fathers than for those on poor terms with their fathers. Family conflict had a main effect on drunkenness and a moderating effect on the association between direct peer pressure and the frequency of drinking, with the stronger effect of direct peer pressure on the frequency of drinking for adolescents experiencing high family conflict than those experiencing low family conflict. The importance of the father–child relationship quality and family conflict for adolescents’ well-being in Singapore as an Asian context was discussed.     

Father by law: Effects of joint legal custody on nonresident fathers’ involvement with children

Family membership and household composition do not always coincide. Joint legal custody after divorce formalizes the relationship between fathers and children who live apart. Policymakers hope that explicit acknowledgment of nonresident fathers’ rights and responsibilities will increase their involvement with their children. I use prospective data from the National Survey of Families and Households to examine the association between joint legal custody and two aspects of nonresident fathers’ contributions to their children—the frequency of visits between fathers and children and child-support payments. The analysis examines approximately 160 families in which parents divorced between interviews conducted for Wave 1 (1987–1988) and Wave 2 (1992–1994) of the survey. I investigate the effects of joint legal custody holding constant physical custody or placement by restricting the analysis to children who live with their mothers most of the year. Controlling for socioeconomic status and the quality of family relationships before separation, fathers with joint legal custody see their children more frequently and have more overnight visits than do other fathers. The positive effect of joint legal custody on frequency of visits persists once unobserved differences among families are taken into account. Although fathers with joint legal custody pay more child support than those without joint legal custody, this difference lacks statistical significance when other family characteristics are taken into account. These findings support the view that joint legal custody may encourage some aspects of paternal involvement after divorce.     

Income growth among nonresident fathers: evidence from Wisconsin

This study examines the changes over time in the personal incomes of nonresident fathers—whether divorced or nonmarital—in Wisconsin. Using data from the Wisconsin Court Record data base and the Wisconsin Department of Revenue, the authors examine the incomes of these fathers over the first seven years following a divorce or the initiation of a paternity suit. They also study separately the income patterns of initially poor nonresident fathers and fathers whose nonresident children receive welfare. The most important finding is that the incomes of nonmarital fathers, which typically are low in the beginning, increase dramatically over the years after paternity establishment—often to a level comparable with the incomes of divorced fathers. On the basis of their findings, the authors conclude that failing to establish child support obligations for nonresident fathers simply because their incomes are initially low does not appear justified. nt]mis|The authors thank the Russell Sage Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Wisconsin Department of Health and Social Services for financial support. They also wish to thank participants in the APPAM panel on noncustodial fathers, as well as colleagues at IRP, especially Pat Brown, for helpful comments and suggestions. A preliminary draft of this paper was presented at APPAM, Bethesda, Maryland, in October 1991.     

Toward a Fuller Understanding of Nonresident Father Involvement: An Examination of Child Support,In-Kind Support,and Visitation

The majority of studies of nonresident father involvement focus on either child support payments or visitation. However, nearly 60% of custodial parents receive in-kind (i.e., noncash) support of some form. Using data from a nationally representative sample of children with nonresident fathers (the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics), we simultaneously investigate via a trivariate probit model the relationships among three aspects of father involvement: child support, in-kind support, and visitation. We find that these dimensions of involvement are positively related and highly intertwined with the strongest positive relationship being between in-kind support and visitation. Additionally, these aspects of involvement have different sets of determinants. Economic characteristics of the resident household are more frequently associated with the receipt of child support, while demographic characteristics of the child, mother, father and resident household are related to all three aspects of nonresident father involvement. Generally speaking, when differences in impacts of determinants vary for lower and higher income resident families, the differences are related to the receipt of child support. Fewer differences are observed with regard to in-kind support receipt or with visitation. Our model also measures how unobserved factors are related to these facets of involvement. Most notable across income groups is that unobserved factors are positively related for child support and in-kind support receipt for higher income resident households. This relationship is insignificant for lower income resident households.     

Parental Leave Take-Up of Fathers in Luxembourg

The study uses administrative data from Luxembourg to investigate fathers’ decisions to use parental leave. We focus on two measures of opportunity cost: the difference between the parental leave benefit and the salary of the father and the mean salary growth for a period of 6 months for each father. The first measure captures the direct opportunity cost, while the second is a proxy for foregone promotion opportunities. We use Cox proportional hazards model for the analysis. The results suggest a negative relationship between foregone income and taking parental leave. Surprisingly, salary growth appears to be positively related to the hazard of taking parental leave. Coefficients of control variables are in line with previous findings: fathers are more likely to use parental leave if they work in larger organization and for the first child.     

Child Support in Immigrant Families

In this study, we use nationally representative data from the U.S. Current Population Survey-Child Support Supplement (N = 28,047) to examine differences in nonresident fathers’ material contributions between children of native and foreign-born mothers. We focus on contributions provided through the formal child support system (whether the mother has a child support agreement and the amount received), as well as support provided informally (the amount of informal cash and whether she receives any in-kind support). We control for a variety of individual and household characteristics, including whether the nonresident father lives in a different state or in a different country. We find that foreign-born mothers are much less likely to have a child support agreement than native-born mothers, but have similar amounts of formal support, once an agreement is in place. Compared to native-born mothers, foreign-born mothers are also much less likely to receive in-kind support, but this difference is completely explained by fathers’ distance from the child. Foreign-born mothers do not differ at all on the amount of informal cash support received from fathers. Nonresident fathers’ residence outside the U.S. is an important mechanism through which nativity affects the likelihood of having a child support order and receiving any in-kind support, but not the amount of formal support (given an order) or the amount of informal cash support. Aggregate comparisons mask important differences within the foreign-born group by mothers’ and children’s citizenship status, years in the U.S., and region of origin.     

3岁以下随迁子女照料对流动女性就业参与的影响研究

本文把3岁以下随迁子女照料分为家庭照料和社会化托育服务,利用2016年全国流动人口动态监测调查数据,综合运用Probit模型、工具变量法以及交互效应检验,考察3岁以下随迁子女照料对流动女性就业参与的影响。研究结果表明,在纠正内生性偏误后,与母亲作为主要照料人相比,其他家庭照料主体参与照料对流动女性就业参与具有显著的正向作用。其中,父亲参与的照料能够使流动女性的就业概率提升约30%,而祖辈照料则使流动女性就业概率提升约58%。另外,选择社会化托育服务对流动女性就业参与也具有显著的正向作用。进一步的交互检验表明,母亲照料1-2岁和2-3岁随迁子女会使得其就业概率更低,分别是照料0-1岁随迁子女的9.4%和7.7%。