Recent Research Reports and News: January
2004
Fathers—Research | Children
& Families | Fatbers/Mothers
in Prison | Census Data
| Systemic Barriers
| Welfare Reform
| NCOFF Abstracts
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New Fathers' Labor Supply: Does Child Health Matter? Kelly
Noonan, Nancy E. Reichman, and Hope Corman, Center for Research
on Child Wellbeing, Working Paper #03-19-FF, December 2003.
Abstract:
We estimate the effect of poor child health on the labor supply of
new fathers post welfare reform, using a national sample of mostly
unwed parents and their children--a group at high risk of living in
poverty. We address the potential endogeneity of child health and
find that having a young child in poor health reduces the father's
probability of being employed by eight percentage points and that
it reduces his work effort by over five hours per week. These results
add to a growing body of literature suggesting that young children
with serious health problems are likely to receive lower levels of
health investment than their healthier peers.
To obtain a copy of the full text of this report in PDF format,
visit the CRCW web
site.
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Unmarried African American Fathers' Involvement with Their
Infants: The Role of Couple Relationships, Nancy E. Cohen, Center
for Research on Child Wellbeing, Working Paper # 03-13-FF, October
2003.
Summary:
Almost one-third of all children and 70% of African American children
in the U.S. are born to parents who are not married. At the time of
children's births, almost all unmarried fathers have contact with
their infants, but this connection drops over time. This study presents
a study of 55 unmarried low-income African American couples in the
early months after the birth of a child. The study considers the implications
of the quality of parents' couple relationship, as well as of parents'
demographics, personal resources, and family structure for understanding
variation in fathers' involvement with their infants. The present
study is one of the first to collect in-depth observational and parent-reported
data from both unmarried mothers and fathers about how their couple
relationships are faring and about the fathers' involvement with their
infants.
Neither mothers' nor fathers' age, education, or income were linked
to father involvement. Fathers of sons and fathers of daughters
had similar levels of involvement with their infants. And, although
fathers who lived with their infants provided more financial support,
they did not necessarily provide more hands-on care of their infants
compared to fathers who lived separately.
The quality of the parents' relationship as a couple was linked
to the father's involvement. Fathers were more involved with their
children when the parents had more supportive, satisfying, and less
negative relationships, both according to parents' own perceptions
and as rated by independent observers who watched videotapes of
the parents talking to each other. There was some indication that
the link between better functioning couple relationships and greater
father involvement may have held only for families with infant girls.
The findings linking the quality of couple relationships and father
involvement extend the well-documented conclusion from the research
on married families that better functioning couple relationships
are linked to greater father involvement. The findings also suggest
that parents' demographics, personal resources, and coresidence
may not be as central to understanding unmarried fathers' involvement
with their infants as has been assumed.
To obtain a copy of the full text of this report in PDF format,
visit the CRCW
web site.
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Fathers’ Perceptions of Paternal Roles: Variations by
Marital Status and Living Arrangement, Ariel Kalil, Center for
Research on Child Wellbeing, Working Paper # 03-12-FF, October 2003.
Abstract:
Relying on new data from fathers in the Fragile Families and Child
WellBeing survey (n=2,903), I examine fathers’ reports of the
“most important” perceived paternal role among six different
domains: providing economic support, direct care, love and affection,
protection, discipline, and teaching the child about life. Approximately
half of all fathers identified providing love and affection as the
most important thing that fathers do. A substantial minority said
that teaching the child about life was the key activity; whereas a
relatively small proportion said that economic support and direct
care were fathers’ major responsibilities. Controlling for an
extensive set of fathers’ background characteristics and attitudes
and measures of the mother-father relationship, married and cohabiting
fathers differ from each other in their perceived importance of financial
support; cohabiting fathers are significantly more likely than married
fathers to identify this dimension of parenting as the most important
one.
To obtain a copy of the full text of this report in PDF format,
visit the CRCW
web site.
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How Do Fathers' Negative Behaviors Shape Relationships with
Their Children?
Maureen R. Waller and Amanda Bailey, Center for Research on Child
Wellbeing, Working Paper #02-18-FF, September 2002.
Abstract:
Drawing on survey and qualitative interviews with mothers and fathers
who participated in the Oakland site of the Fragile Families and
Child Wellbeing study, this paper documents the prevalence of violence,
problematic drug or alcohol use, criminal activity, and recent incarceration
among fathers in the study and examines how these issues are related
to fathers’ relationships with their children about two and
one-half years after having a non-marital birth. The survey results
show that about half of fathers are reported to have at least one
of the negative characteristics examined in this paper. We also
found that fathers with negative characteristics were generally
less likely than other fathers to have romantic relationships with
the mothers of their children, to be involved with their children,
and to be supporting them at 30 months, however, relationships between
individual behaviors and outcomes varied. Among parents who had
ended their romantic relationships, abusive fathers were less involved
with their children than other fathers. Qualitative evidence sheds
light on some of these findings by showing that mothers responded
to fathers’ behaviors by leaving or threatening to leave him,
by making a family commitment with the father to end negative behaviors,
and by limiting fathers’ access to children after the relationship
ended. Fathers, in turn, attempted to end negative behaviors, individually
or as part of a family commitment, fell back on these behaviors
to support their families, or withdrew from their children. Polices
to promote increased father involvement, particularly through marriage,
should be mindful that a notable share of fathers they are targeting
have characteristics that may not be conducive to increased engagement
while other fathers face personal and institutional barriers to
involvement.
To obtain a copy of the full text of this report in PDF format,
visit the CRCW
web site .
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Prisoners Once Removed: The Impact of Incarceration and Reentry
on Children, Families, and Communities, edited by Jeremy Travis
and Michelle Waul, Urban Institute Press, 2003.
Book description:
Imprisonment casts a long shadow in the United States. Currently,
1.4 million individuals are behind bars in America's state and federal
prisons. For every person who goes to prison, there is a family and
community left behind. Despite the huge number of affected families
and children, there is little research on the impact of incarceration
on American family life. In Prisoners Once Removed, the authors explore
this important issue-from the psychological impact of imprisonment
on prisoners and the difficulty of reentering free society to the
challenges faced by communities who must integrate the prisoners once
they return. They look at family functioning during a period of imprisonment,
and how families are affected by the return of an incarcerated parent.
Finally, they evaluate the current system and suggest ways to improve
interaction between the corrections and health and human services
to better serve the growing population of children, families, and
communities. This book is vital reading for anyone who is concerned
about foster care, child development, strengthening families, and
post-prison adjustment.
To order this book online, visit the
Urban Institute Press web site, or call (202) 261-5687; toll-free
1-877-847-7377.
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Where Children Live When Parents Are Incarcerated, Elizabeth
I. Johnson and Jane Waldfogel, Joint Center on Poverty Research,
Policy Brief, Vol. 5, No. 4 (2003).
When parents are incarcerated, they often leave children behind. In
1999, an estimated 721,500 state and federal prisoners were parents
to nearly 1.5 million children under age 18. Who cares for children
when a parent is incarcerated, and the services they and their caregivers
receive, are clearly pressing issues.
The needs that children have, and where these children are placed
during a parent's incarceration-whether with the other parent, with
a grandparent, relative, or in foster care-may have important implications
for how children fare during a parent's incarceration. Elizabeth
Johnson and Jane Waldfogel, in their JCPR working paper, Children
of Incarcerated Parents, examine the risk factors facing children
of incarcerated parents and how these factors relate to children's
living arrangements during incarceration.
The authors analyze data from the 1997 Survey of Inmates in State
and Federal Correctional Facilities on 6,870 fathers and 2,047 mothers
who were incarcerated in state or federal prison in 1997 and who
had at least one child under age 18. They examine eight documented
risk factors for poor developmental outcomes to determine what,
if any, association exists between these risk factors and children's
placements. The risk factors are low parent education, parental
substance use, parents' mental health or emotional problems, low
socioeconomic status, parental history of sexual or physical abuse,
past incarceration of parent or grandparent, and a parent's own
history of foster care. Identifying links between risk factors and
living arrangements, the authors suggest, can guide service providers
in tailoring and coordinating services for these children.
To review the complete article in HMTL or PDF format, visit the
JCPR web site.
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Grandmothers’ Involvement among Children and Adolescents
Growing Up in Poverty, Laura D. Pittman, Joint Center on Poverty
Research, JCPR Working Paper 345, January 2004.
JCPR Abstract:
Recent policy decisions associated with welfare reform and the foster
care system put grandparents in the position of serving as the safety
net for their grandchildren when family problems arise. These policy
changes are formalizing and promoting the informal role extended
kin, especially grandmothers, have often played in low-income minority
families. However, little is known about how varying types of grandmother
involvement may influence children’s functioning. This paper
uses data from Welfare, Children, and Families: A Three-City Study,
a longitudinal study sampling low-income minority youth from high-poverty
neighborhoods, to explore how children and young adolescents function
both initially and over time based on grandmothers’ residential
status and their level of caretaking responsibility. Cross-sectional
analyses indicate that young children with coresiding grandmothers
display more socioemotional problems than their peers. However,
few differences were found in the cross-sectional analyses for adolescents.
Furthermore, several differences in background and family characteristics
were found between families with varying types of grandmother involvement.
Longitudinal analyses found striking differences based on the type
of grandmother involvement, both in young children and adolescents.
Young children with a custodial grandmother lagged behind their
peers in the development of reading skills over time. In addition,
adolescents with a custodial grandmother displayed greater levels
of externalizing problem behaviors over time as compared to their
peers. Findings are discussed in terms of how children at risk may
be identified based on the type of grandmother involvement. In addition,
how the type of grandmother involvement may be influencing children’s
socioemotional and cognitive development and the corresponding policy
implications are discussed.
To obtain a copy of the complete report, visit the JCPR
web site.
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Maternal Employment, Family Processes, and Early Childhood Adjustment
for Children Living in Poverty, Rashmita S. Mistry, Joint Center
on Poverty Research, JCPR Working Paper #344, January, 2004.
Abstract:
The current study examined the processes by which maternal employment,
in the context of low-income work, influences young children's development
using longitudinal data collected as part of an experimental evaluation
of the Comprehensive Child Development Program (CCDP) during the early
1990s. We assessed mother's work dynamics over a 3-year period and linked
these patterns to family processes and children's outcomes assessed
at age 3, after accounting for selection effects (human capital, household
characteristics, mother's mental health), and child characteristics.
Results indicate a modest but positive impact of work for children's
cognitive and linguistic outcomes, but no association with problematic
behavioral adjustment. Mediation analyses suggested parenting practices,
but not family resources, as one potential pathway through which employment
dynamics influenced children's cognitive development. Working mothers
were rated by interviewers as displaying more positive, sensitive, and
stimulating parenting behaviors, and in turn their children displayed
higher levels of cognitive functioning at age three as compared to children
of mothers who worked fewer hours or less frequently during the study
period.
To obtain a copy of the complete report, visit the JCPR
web site.
New Citations from NCOFF's
FatherLit Database
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