Are Low Earnings a Barrier to Nonresidential Father's Involvement with Their Children?

Background/Purpose: Children’s living arrangements in the U.S. have become more complex and fluid, with an increasing number who live apart from their father. Yet some research suggests that nonresident father involvement would have beneficial effects. A variety of policies have been implemented to try to increase nonresident father involvement. These include joint legal custody (shared decision-making), policy encouragements for children to spend some overnights with both parents, and the development of parenting plans (negotiated documents outlining the level and timing of nonresident parent involvement). Understanding the determinants of nonresident fathers’ involvement, and especially the relationship between involvement and fathers’ economic status is important for improving child well-being. However, previous research has produced substantially mixed results, perhaps due in part to limitations of sample and measures. We examine 2 questions: (a) are a nonresident father’s low earnings associated with the likelihood and number of days of in-person contact with his child? (b) Does controlling for measures of family relationships and complexity moderate the association between fathers’ earnings and in-person father-child contact?

Methods: We use data from two waves of the Survey of Wisconsin Works Families, a panel study of resident mothers receiving welfare and a nonresident father of one of the “focal children.” For this study, mothers’ responses are combined with administrative records from child support and the unemployment insurance system.  These measures improve the accuracy of fathers’ wages in the formal labor market. With a sample of 849 residential mothers, we conduct logistic regressions and lagged dependent variable analysis to estimate whether fathers’ earnings are associated with the likelihood of in-person contact between the nonresident father and his child, considering this relationship both with and without accounting for the potential moderating influence of relationship variables.

Results by question: (a) There is a consistent significant association between wages and having at least once/year contact: fathers with annual wages above the median have a higher probability (170% more likely) of seeing their nonresidential child than fathers without formal earnings, even in multivariate analyses controlling for background and family characteristics. In contrast, in the models predicting frequent father-child contact (once/week or more) wages are not statistically significant. (b) When relationship variables are added (e.g., the presence of a mother’s new partner and the level of conflict with the mother), fathers’ wages remain significant.  The relationship variables are strong predictors of both the presence of contact and its level. 

Implications: In general, we find that fathers’ wages open the door for contact, but the frequency of contact, after the initial contact, is better predicted by other factors.  Findings will inform interventions aimed at increasing the support nonresidential fathers provide to their children, by illustrating the need for interventions that simultaneously work to enhance fathers’ economic resources and relationship with the resident mother.