Bridging Disciplinary Boundaries (January 11 - 14, 2007)

In the last forty years the proportion of children born to unmarried parents has increased dramatically. While parenting and marriage have been well researched, few studies have investigated the effects of unwed couples' relationships on parenting processes. Studies of dyadic conflict in married couples indicate that the quality of the marital relationship was associated with greater participation by the father in child care (Coiro & Emery, 1998) and fathers' participation affects the child's well being (Bouchard & Lee, 2000). Recent data indicate that many never-married fathers are likely to be initially involved with their children and 68% to 80% of never-married fathers either lived with their child or visited several times a week in the first year after birth. Furthermore, baseline data from the Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCW, 2003) indicate that unwed couples with children are cohabiting and are often romantically involved at the time of their baby's birth. Yet little is known about the duration of these relationships over the long-term especially in fragile families. Thus, the purpose of this study was to explore the long-term effects of the father/mother dyad on the father's involvement with his offspring in fragile families.This study is a secondary analysis of data from Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study (FFCW). Our sample (N=1000) consisted of unwed fathers, who had in any kind of relationship with child's mother, and fathers, who saw the child more than once in the last 30 days at wave II (year1), and wave III (year 3).Results of the structural equation models show the relationships among study constructs at 1 year and changes in these constructs 3 years later. The model provided a good fit for the data: X2 =374.68. df=125, SRMR=.04, CFI= 0.95, RMSEA= .05 (90% confidence interval .04–.05). The value of the chi-square was statistically significant (p<.001), but the SRMR, CFI, and RMSEA satisfied or approximated established criteria for good model–data fit. A supportive relationship at Year 1 was significantly related to engagement, nursery activities, and fathers' accessibility at Year 3 (B=.41, B=.21, and B=.27 respectively). These findings support the spillover hypothesis, which proposes that a significant and positive supportive relationship in the parental dyad affects the quality of the parent-child relationships. Conflict in the relationship at Year 1 was also significantly related to engagement and accessibility of father involvement at Year 3 (B=.22; B=.15, respectively) with one exception: father's involvement in the nursery. This finding supports the compensatory hypothesis, which proposes that conflict in the parental dyad increases the father's involvement with his offering. The father is more involved with the child because of child custody issues or to compensate the child for the loss. Fathers, who had less conflict, had higher parenting attitudes. Finally, the couple's relationship was a significant predictor of fathers' involvement for fathers who lived apart from the child and mother. This research contributes to understanding the dyadic effects of unwed couples on the fathers' long-term involvement and its correlates and suggests points of intervention.