Research Reports and News Posted March
2002:
Fathers—Research | Children
& Families
| Fatbers/Mothers in Prison
| Census
Data | Systemic Barriers
| Welfare Reform |
NCOFF Abstracts
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Father Involvement, Child Health and Maternal Health Behavior, Julien Teitler, School of Social Work Columbia University, July, 2000.
Introduction--Excerpt:
Until recently, academic and public interest in the contributions of fathers to their children was limited to their role as breadwinners. Fathers were primarily portrayed as providers of financial support, and the departure of fathers from the family unit, by separation or divorce, was seen as detrimental, primarily because of the resulting financial loss to the women and children of those unions. Only in the past 10 years has public and academic interest begun to look at fathers as potentially important in other ways. The new focus on fathers and fatherhood has developed among academics and social policy advocates. Among the former, the focus on fathers has been enlarged to take into account father involvement or contact with children and, to some extent, the quality of relationships between fathers and children. The theory behind this more inclusive movement is that, in addition to bringing in economic resources, fathers may provide parenting and community resources (Lamb, 1997). Single parents may not be able to provide the child with as much time and attention as can two parents. The additional time provided by two-parent families could be allocated a number of different ways, and some of these, (e.g., time spent reading) can promote positive child development. Increased time may also lead to increased supervision and to more consistent enforcement of rules.
Social advocates see the father as a moral guardian and argue that the loss of fathers from the family unit has detrimental effects on the socialization of our children. As such, fathers are portrayed, not so much as providers, but as critical elements of the key regulatory social institution.
Finally, fathers themselves are claiming rights and responsibilities towards their children. Father rights groups are lobbying to insure or increase fathers' access to their children after separations and grassroots movements and organizations, such as the Million Man March, the National Fatherhood Initiative and the United Fathers Forum, are claiming social and moral responsibilities of fatherhood.
Despite the increased interest in fatherhood and the widespread belief that fathers' involvement with their children is important, there is little evidence to support this belief. The empirical research has lagged behind the public forum, perhaps because of the limited data available on father involvement. The primary focus on mothers and children in national surveys, to the detriment of fathers, means that most available data are, at best, limited to information on whether the father was in the household, the frequency of non-residential father-child contact or the financial contributions of fathers. Additionally, questions about father involvement are almost always asked of the mother, which presents a one-sided and potentially incomplete picture of the relationship between fathers and children (or between mothers and fathers) and of efforts to be involved. When fathers are included in national surveys, they tend to under-represent never married father (Garfinkel, McLanahan and Hanson, 1998).
Investigations of the limited data on father involvement have shown wide variation in financial contributions and contact with children. About one-third of fathers do contribute financially and maintain regular contact with their children and the remainder of fathers are much less involved (Garfinkel, McLanahan and Robbins, 1994). Child support does appear to have positive effects on children's educational attainment (Garfinkel, McLanahan and Robbins, 1994) but there is little evidence that contact between non-residential fathers and children makes a difference (Furstenberg, Morgan and Allison, 1987; King, 1994; McLanahan, Seltzer, Hanson and Thomson, 1994).
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Fathers Behind Bars: The Impact of Incarceration on Family Formation, Working Paper #00-08, Bruce Western Sara McLanahan, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing, June 2000.
Introduction--Excerpt
Increases in divorce and non-marital childbearing have dramatically
altered children's living arrangements and access to parental resources.
Whereas in 1960, the vast majority of children lived with both of their
biological parents from birth to adulthood, by 2000 less than half of all
children were expected to grow up with both parents (Bumpass and XX).
Today, a third of all births in the U.S. are to unmarried parents, and
many of these children will never live with their fathers (Ventura 1995).
Not only have children experienced substantial declines in parental
resources, their access to public resources have declined as well. Cash
transfers to disadvantaged households have been discredited as an
instrument of social welfare. In 1996, the Federal government abandoned
it's national standard for public assistance by replacing Aid for
Dependent Children with Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. The new
welfare law shifts responsibility for children from government to parents
by limiting cash assistance to single mothers and by forcing non-resident
fathers to pay child support. Although the shifting policy climate targets
single mothers, the burden of welfare reform falls on children. Not
surprisingly, child poverty rates have remained stubbornly high despite
unprecedented prosperity throughout the economy as a whole.
Although welfare policies seek to encourage marriage and increase
parental responsibility, parallel developments in our criminal justice
policies have had the opposite effect. Criminal sentences have become more
punitive, imposing long terms of incarceration on drug offenders and
third-time felons. Under this new sentencing regime, the US penal system
grew by nearly 700,000 between 1990 and 1998 to include more 1.8 million
inmates (Gilliard 1999). These aggregate figures conceal enormous racial
disparity. Incarceration rates for African Americans are about seven times
higher than those for whites. Estimates indicate that 12.1% of black men
aged 20 to 35 were behind bars on an average day in 1996 (Western and
Pettit forthcoming). Figures based on 1991 incarceration rates indicate
that 28.5% of black men will spend time in prison at some time in their
lives compared to a lifetime risk of 4.4% for white men (Bonczar and Beck
1997). Insofar as incarceration is concentrated among young poorly-educated
minority men, the expansion of the penal system over the last two
decades emerges as a key suspect in explaining the growing number of
single-parent families in disadvantaged communities. Incarceration is
likely to deter family formation both directly, by making it more
difficult for fathers to live with their children, and indirectly, by
reducing fathers' employment prospects and earnings capacity. Both
outcomes discourage marriage and family formation.
In this paper we use data from a new survey, the Fragile Families
and Child Wellbeing Study, to examine the relationship between
incarceration and family structure among new parents. The analysis looks
at how incarceration patterns influence cohabitation and marriage one year
after the birth of a child. While other data sets provide information
about marriage and cohabitation among new parents, the Fragile Families
Survey is unique in offering a detailed picture of the criminal justice
history of a sample of new fathers, including a large sample of unmarried
fathers. An analysis of these data thus provides an important first step
in assessing the impact of incarceration on family formation among low-income
parents.
For a copy of the complete report in PDF format, visit the Center for Research on Child Wellbeing.
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Father Absence and Youth Incarceration, Working Paper #99-03, Cynthia C. Harper and Sara S. McLanahan, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing.
Author Abstract:
This study measures the likelihood of incarceration among contemporary male youths
from father-absent households, using data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth.
Hypotheses test the contribution of socioeconomic disadvantage, poverty, family instability,
residential adults in father-absent households, as well as selection bias. Results from
longitudinal event history analysis show that while certain unfavorable circumstances, such as
teen motherhood, low parent education, urban residence, racial inequalities and poverty, are
associated with incarceration among father-absent youths, net of these factors, these youths still
face double the odds of their peers. Nonetheless, youths from stepparent families are even more
vulnerable to the risk of incarceration, especially those in father-stepmother households, which
suggests that the re-marriage may present even greater difficulties for male children than father
absence.
Family Well-Being After Welfare Reform, edited by Douglas J. Besharov, Committee to Review Welfare Reform Research, Welfare Reform Academy, Maryland School of Public Affairs, 2002.
Preface Excerpt:
This is one of a series of reports from the Committee to Review Welfare Reform Research. The
committee was formed to help the public, scholars, practitioners, and policymakers understand research
on welfare reform and apply its lessons. Its purpose is to assess the quality and relevance of the most
significant evaluation studies, identifying those findings that are sufficiently well-grounded to be
regarded as credible. The committee members are experts in evaluation and related social science fields...
This volume reports on Family Well-Being After Welfare Reform, a conference held by the
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (AEI), in association with the David and Lucile
Packard Foundation, on December 8 and 9, 1999. The conference had three objectives: (1) to provide an
initial exploration of the well-being of low-income children in the wake of the sharp decrease in welfare
caseloads; (2) to identify the existing data sets, surveys, and other materials that could help assess their
well-being; and(3) to suggest, in general terms, how existing data sources could be enhanced and what
additional ones might be needed for a continuing assessment of the well-being of low-income children and their families.
This volume contains the papers presented at the conference, together with an edited transcript of
the comments and general discussion. This book is divided into twelve topic areas: (1) welfare reform
update; (2) ongoing major research on welfare reform: what will be learned; (3) material well-being; (4)
family versus household; (5) teenage sex, pregnancy, and nonmarital births; (6) child maltreatment and
foster care placements; (7) homelessness and housing conditions; (8) children's health and well-being;
(9) nutrition, food security, and obesity; (10) crime, juvenile delinquency, and dysfunctional behavior;
(11) mothers' work and child care; and (12) plans of the Department of Health and Human Services to
monitor the well-being of low-income children.
We sincerely hope that the materials in this report aid in understanding this
important topic.
New Citations from
NCOFF's FatherLit Database
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