Parenting as A “package deal”: Relationships,fertility, and nonresident father involvement among unmarried parents

Fatherhood has traditionally been viewed as part of a “package deal” in which a father’s relationship with his child is contingent on his relationship with the mother. We evaluate the accuracy of this hypothesis in light of the high rates of multiple-partner fertility among unmarried parents using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a recent longitudinal survey ofnonmarital births in large cities. We examine whether unmarried mothers’ and fathers’ subsequent relationship and parenting transitions are associated with declines in fathers ’ contact with their nonresident biological children. We find that father involvement drops sharply after relationships between unmarried parents end. Mothers’ transitions into new romantic partnerships and new parenting roles are associated with larger declines in involvement than fathers’ transitions. Declines in fathers’ involvement following a mother’s relationship or parenting transition are largest when children are young. We discuss the implications of our results for the well-being ofnonmarital children and the quality of nonmarital relationships faced with high levels of relationship instability and multiple-partner fertiliy.     

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.     

Effects of child health on parents’ relationship status

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to estimate the effect of a child's poor health on the presence of thefather. We investigated whether parents lived in the same household 12-18 months after the child's birth and whether their relationships changed along a continuum (married, cohabiting, romantically involved, friends, or not involved) during the same period. We found that within this short period, having a child with poor health decreased the probability that the parents lived together by 10 percentage points. It also increased the probability that their relationship status moved in the direction of less involvement by 6 percentage points. These results indicate that children's health and family structure jointly shape children's long-term health and economic trajectories.     

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.     

留守会导致亲子关系疏离吗?——来自CEPS的经验证据

基于中国教育追踪调查(CEPS)基线调查数据,本文采用IV-ordered Probit模型探讨了留守对农村儿童与父母之间亲子关系的影响及其异质性。研究发现:第一,相对于非留守儿童而言,留守儿童认为与父亲、母亲关系"很亲近"的概率分别低11.7%、16.0%;第二,母外留守导致儿童与父亲、母亲关系"很亲近"的概率低26.7%、40.6%;第三,双外留守对儿童与父母双方的关系均具有显著的负效应,留守儿童与父亲、母亲关系"很亲近"的概率分别降低了14.7%、15.8%。笔者认为应进一步强化家庭监护主体责任,充分发挥学校教育的重要作用,同时也要调动社会各方面的力量,为留守儿童的健康发展创造良好的外部环境。本文对揭示家庭内部的人际关系、完善青少年人格个性的培养具有直接意义,也对进一步促进新型城镇化背景下的"城乡一体化"发展策略以及公共服务均等化具有间接意义。     

Who gets custody?

Changes in the living arrangements of children have implications for social policy and children’s well-being. Understanding who gets custody on divorce—mother, father, or both sharing custody—can also inform our understanding of family organization and the merits of alternative theories of marriage and divorce. We examine physical-custody outcomes among recent Wisconsin divorces in an effort to understand the factors associated with shared custody as well as mother-sole custody and father-sole custody. Although mother-sole custody remains the dominant arrangement, shared custody has increased over a nine-year period. We find that the probability of shared custody increases with parent’s income. Prior marital history. parents’ ages, the age and gender of children, and the legal process also have an impact on the probability of shared custody. In contrast to shared custody, the probability of father-sole custody decreases with parent’s income, while the relationship with other significant factors is generally similar. The notable exception is that, unlike shared custody, we find no evidence for an increase over time in the probability of father-sole custody. We also find that when the father has a higher proportion of the Couple’s total income, both shared custody and father-sole custody are more likely.     

The Toronto Lesbian Family Study

Twenty-seven lesbian mothers completed standardized tools chosen to assess current functioning, followed by a video-taped interview. Verbal children were also interviewed. Questions involved perceptions of the mothers' and children's experiences of being homosexual or being raised by homosexual parents, knowledge and fantasies about the donor/father, feelings regarding the role of fathers, parents' experiences of being fathered, legal issues, and development. All mothers were strongly lesbian identified and most were completely "out." All but one mother planned to or had told their children. All mothers planned to reveal donor information at an appropriate age. Many, especially parents of boys, had concerns about lack of a male role model, but none felt this would negatively affect the child's development. Mothers were open to having their child ask questions and even seek out the donor when older. Thirty-one percent of mothers reported a positive relationship with their own father, 42% a father who was present but unavailable or punitive and 27% a completely absent father for large parts of their childhood. Couples divided parenting work based on individual strengths and interests, work schedules and demands. Only two of the couples felt that one of them played a role typical of a father. An aggregate score was compiled for each mother based on the number of negative outcomes in the standardized tools. The mean number of negative outcomes for the mothers was 3.15 (SD = 1.85). Of the six women with 5 or more negative outcomes on the scales, three were single parents and one had lost her partner when her child was two months old. On the CESD, three mothers showed depression levels that were high. The Internal External scale showed 42% of mothers to have an external locus of control. Three mothers scored negatively on the Family Assessment Device. Ninety-two percent of women showed moderate to high self-esteem on the Rosenberg Self-Esteem scale, and the Parenting Stress Index found only 4 women showing enough stress to warrant follow-up. Mothers who reported very negative early experiences of coming out were more likely to report current depressive symptoms (p = .03). All but one child living in two-mother homes identified both mothers as part of their family. Our initial impression is that these are primarily strong families with a variety of parenting skills, stressors and philosophies.     

Gay male couples: the importance of coming out and being out to parents

This exploratory study applied grounded theory methodology to examine what coupled gay men thought were the relationship impacts of being out to parents and in-laws. Data were collected from an accidental sample of 40 men in 20 homosexual couples using a standardized, open-ended interview. Virtually all of the respondents who had come out to their parents experienced initial and ongoing parental and in-law disapproval for their lifestyles and relationships. However, most men believed that it benefitted their unions to be out to their parents and partner's parents. Not having to hide the relationship was seen as a primary relationship advantage. Inclusion of one's partner in family events also emerged as a significant benefit. In contrast to the existing literature, a large proportion of respondents believed that parental/in-law antagonism had no adverse impacts on their dyads. They shielded their relationships by maintaining a strong sense of independence and in turn solid intergenerational boundaries. This study provides evidence to suggest that disclosure of sexual orientation to parents may be a distinctive, important developmental task for gay men which is critical to their relationships with their partners. Based on the findings of this research, mental health practitioners would be advised to assist gay men in the establishment and maintenance of strong intergenerational boundaries to protect their unions from parental/in-law disapproval.     

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.     

Formerly Incarcerated Parents and Their Children

The negative effects of incarceration on child well-being are often linked to the economic insecurity of formerly incarcerated parents. Researchers caution, however, that the effects of parental incarceration may be small in the presence of multiple-partner fertility and other family complexity. Despite these claims, few studies have directly observed either economic insecurity or the full extent of family complexity. We study parent-child relationships with a unique data set that includes detailed information about economic insecurity and family complexity among parents just released from prison. We find that stable private housing, more than income, is associated with close and regular contact between parents and children. Formerly incarcerated parents see their children less regularly in contexts of multiple-partner fertility and in the absence of supportive family relationships. Significant housing and family effects are estimated even after we control for drug use and crime, which are themselves negatively related to parental contact. The findings point to the constraints of material insecurity and the complexity of family relationships on the contact between formerly incarcerated parents and their children.     

Migration and Father Absence: Shifting Family Structure in Mexico

Despite many changing demographic processes in Mexico—declining adult mortality, rising divorce, and rising nonmarital fertility—Mexican children’s family structure has been most affected by rising migration rates. Data from five national surveys spanning three decades demonstrate that since 1976, migration has shifted from the least common to the most common form of father household absence. Presently, more than 1 in 5 children experience a father’s migration by age 15; 1 in 11 experiences his departure to the United States. The proportions are significantly higher among those children born in rural communities and those born to less-educated mothers. The findings emphasize the importance of framing migration as a family process with implications for children’s living arrangements and attendant well-being, particularly in resource-constrained countries. The stability of children’s family life in these regions constitutes a substantial but poorly measured cost of worldwide increases in migration.     

Financial Literacy,Portfolio Choice and Financial Well-Being

The increased variability in family types and forms of relationships is the most apparent outcome of family change in recent decades in Europe. One relationship that has emerged and recently become more visible, both in society and in science, is a ‘nonresidential partnership’ termed living apart together (LAT). We explore the meaning and incidence of LAT partnerships across Europe using a life course perspective. Cluster analysis using five cluster variables (living independently from parents, never having lived as a couple before, the intention to cohabit in the future, the age of the respondents, and the duration of the relationship) was carried out on data from the Generations and Gender Survey for ten countries. Four types of non-residential partnership across Europe are revealed. From a measurement perspective, a simplified model provides empirical evidence that three indicators are sufficient to detect and situate LAT relationships on a partnership continuum: (1) having a nonresidential partner, (2) the age of the respondent, and (3) the duration of the LAT relationship. Classifying relationships with a non-resident partner can be carried out efficiently if information about the age of the respondent and the duration of the current LAT relationship is available.     

Disparities in Children’s Family Experiences by Mother’s Socioeconomic Status: The Case of Finland

A well-known argument claims that socioeconomic differentials in children’s family structures have become increasingly important in shaping child outcomes and the resources available to children in developed societies. One assumption is that differentials are comparatively small in Nordic welfare states. Our study examines how children’s experiences of family structures and family dynamics vary by their mother’s educational attainment in Finland. Based on register data on the childbearing and union histories of women in Finland born from 1969 onwards, we provide life-table estimates of children’s (N?=?64,162) experiences of family dissolution, family formation, and family structure from ages 0–15 years, stratified by mother’s education level at the child’s birth. We find huge socioeconomic disparities in children’s experiences of family structures and transitions. Compared to children of highly educated mothers, children of mothers with low levels of education are almost twice as likely to be born in cohabitation and four times as likely to be born to a lone mother. They are also much more likely to experience further changes in family structure—particularly parental separation. On average, children of low-educated mothers spend just half of their childhood years living with both their parents, whereas those of high-educated mothers spend four-fifths of their childhood with both parents. The sociodemographic inequalities among children in Nordic welfare states clearly deserve more scholarly attention.     

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.     

流动儿童家庭教育期望的影响因素探析——基于北京市某区的问卷调查

利用"人口迁移与儿童发展的跟踪研究"基期数据,本文讨论了流动儿童家长对其子女的教育期望及影响因素,旨在回答流动儿童家长的教育期望是否存在差异,以及家长的个人生活经历与社会态度是否会影响到家长的教育期望这两个问题。结果发现,希望子女能够接受更高层次的教育仍然是中国社会较为普遍的现象;就读于不同学校儿童的家长,其教育期望的确存在差异,但这与家庭的经济条件无关;儿童的学习成绩、家长的受教育程度、家长对家庭教育的重视程度、对学历重要性的认识程度等家庭的文化背景及家长的社会态度乃是影响家长教育期望的主要因素;并且,父亲和母亲对子女的教育期望是不同的。但教育选择(就读何种类型的学校)与教育期望之间的因果关系等问题尚需进一步讨论。     

Parenting a child with a disability: An examination of resident and non-resident fathers

Children with disabilities often require, more extensive family involvement and greater paternal support than other children. Yet these children are the children least likely to live with their fathers. This paper uses data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 from the United States to examine the association between child disability and resident and non-resident biological fathers’ supportiveness, relationship, and monitoring of their children. Regression analyses indicate significant challenges for all fathers of children with disabilities. Children of resident fathers report more positive interactions than children of non-resident fathers. However, earlier co-residence and more frequent contact significantly improve the quality, of father-youth relationships among men who do not live with their children.     

基于符号互动论视角下的个体生育态度探究

近年来随着人口老龄化进程的明显加快,以及不同地区、城市出现的生育率持续走低等情况,中国未来人口数量的变化成为了一个十分重要的议题。近年来,国家先后制定了“双独生二胎”、“单独生二胎”以及全面放开二胎等鼓励民众生育的相关政策;相关学者也从人口学和经济学等视角对生育问题展开了诸多研究。本研究则是从符号互动论这一微观社会学视角出发,试图了解民众（主要集中在1970年至1995年出生的群体）生育态度是否会受到社会心理因素,尤其是从小生长的家庭环境中,兄弟姊妹等手足人数、手足关系、父母对待子女公平与否和出生排行的影响;以及当前生活环境,如社会治安状况、经济发展前景和政治稳定性等方面的主观判断对生育态度的影响;最后研究还将结婚意愿、性别等因素纳入到影响个体生育态度的分析模型之中。研究结果发现,兄弟姊妹等手足越多者,未来越倾向要生孩子;手足间关系越好者,未来也越倾向于要生孩子;排行中间的比排行老大的生孩子意愿高;无论父母对自己和手足公平情况怎样,都不会影响其生育态度。此外在所有外在环境中,经济状况是影响人们生育态度的主要因素,有结婚意愿者更倾向于生育孩子,男性也显著比女性更倾向于生育孩子。     

Children's living arrangements in developing countries

This paper documents the wide variation in living arrangements experienced by children in developing regions using data from 19 Demographic and Health Surveys. Traditionally, researchers and policymakers concerned with child welfare have assumed that, apart from exceptional cases, children live with their mothers, experience childhood together with their siblings, and have access to resources from both biological parents. Data presented in this paper contradict this assumption. The data demonstrate that, in many countries of sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America as opposed to parts of Asia and North Africa, children spend substantial proportions of their childhood years apart from one or both parents and, by extension, apart from at least some of their siblings. The mothers of many of these children do not live with a partner or are in marital circumstances that may attenuate the link between the child and the father. In countries where child fostering is practiced, the likelihood that children will live apart from their mothers is negatively related to their mother's access to the resources of their fathers and other relatives and positively related to the number of younger siblings. The focus of the paper is on four essential elements of children's living arrangements that influence their access to resources: (1) mother-child co-residence, (2) father-child coresidence, (3) household structure and (4) the number, presence and spacing of siblings. The research suggests that significant proportions of young children, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, benefit from the support provided by family members other than their parents. This support, which involves the coresidence of family members beyond the nuclear unit, can take many forms: the co-residence of three generations within the same household, the inclusion of a single mother and her children as a sub-family within a more complex household, or the exchange of children between kin. Surprisingly, despite enormous variations between countries in current fertility rates (ranging from roughly 2 to 7 births per woman), children in countries as diverse as Thailand and Mali spend their childhood with no more than 2 to 3 children on average sharing the same household. Thus, childhood as it is experienced in many parts of the developing world has much that is common despite apparent differences and much else that is different despite apparent similarities.This is a substantially revised version of a paper presented at the Demographic and Health Surveys World Conference in Washington, DC, 5–7 August 1991.     

Family Location and Caregiving Patterns from an International Perspective

We conduct a cross‐national econometric analysis of intra‐family location and caregiving patterns. Using European data, we first assess, from an international perspective, the relationship between family structure and the geographic proximity between adult children and their parents. We then examine whether differences in family structure are related to the amount of informal care adult children provide to their elderly parents. Lastly, we look for cross‐country differences in family location and caregiving patterns, and interpret observed differences in terms of heterogeneous institutional solutions to elderly care. Our results not only provide a new empirical perspective on the geography of the family, but also provide insights into how family‐related and institutional factors shape patterns of time transfers from adult children to elderly parents.     

Family involved or left behind in migration? A family-centred perspective towards Estonia-Finland cross-border commuting

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to find out how the active cross-border mobility of one family member changes the communication patterns inside the family and how it impacts those who stay behind. Concentrating on the case study of Estonian men working in Finland, this paper examines how families are maintaining relationships with people close to them and what kind of new practices are created to overcome the geographical distance. The importance of both active real-life and mediated communication, media usage, and social-media practices, but also new travelling practices are stressed. The perspectives of both the mobile members of the family and those who stay behind are covered with a focus on how all family members are involved in the migration processes. The fieldwork demonstrates that the mobility of one member of the family can influence the partner and children to take a more active position in maintaining communication during the period of working abroad. Through media usage and international visits, the partner and children gain a special kind of transnational lifestyle.