Father Repartnering and Involvement with Nonresident Children

Purpose: This study examines the associations between father repartnering through marriage or cohabiting and fathers' subsequent involvement with nonresident children. Most nonresident fathers form new families through cohabitation or (re)marriage (Seltzer & Bianchi, 1994; Stephens, 1996). About 75% of nonresident fathers form new families through repartnering within 5 years after separation (Bumpass & Sweet, 1989; Cherlin & Furstenberg, 1994). These changes in fathers' family structures may alter fathers' motivation to invest time or other types of resources in nonresident children. Further, fathers' behaviors toward their nonresident children may vary by types of repartnership because marriage legally ties fathers to their current family but cohabiting does not. Thus, (re)marriage and cohabitation may differentially affect father involvement with nonresident children, which has important implications for the well-being of nonresident children.

Method: Data comes from The Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS). The FFCWS is a national longitudinal study of approximately 4,900 children born between 1998 and 2000 in 20 cities with populations of over 200,000. The study follows 3,712 children born to unmarried parents and 1,186 children born to married parents and provides information about fathering, couple relationships, and new partnerships. Baseline interviews with mothers and fathers were conducted soon after a child's birth. Follow-up interviews with both parents were conducted when the child was about 1, 3, and 5 years old. This study uses fixed effects and Heckman selection models to examine the association between father repartnering through remarriage or cohabitation and their involvement with nonresident children. These two types of analytical models respectively reduce bias due to unobserved stable characteristics and differential selection into nonresident fatherhood on father's involvement.

Findings: Father repartnering is negatively related to involvement with nonresident children. Fathers who have repartnered with another woman have less frequently seen their nonresident children than fathers who have not. Furthermore, among repartnered fathers, those who (re)marry have less frequent contact with children than those who cohabiting. This result supports the hypotheses predicting negative effects of father repartnering on involvement with children, which also vary by repartnership type. Among repartnered fathers, these results suggest that remarried fathers may concentrate their investments in their current family to a greater extent than cohabiting fathers, potentially because marriage provides closer legal ties among family members than cohabitation (Seltzer, 1991). Conclusion and Implication: This study finds that father repartnering is associated with involvement with nonresident children after controlling for demographic and economic characteristics of mothers and fathers. This study contributes to extending the research on nonresident father involvement by taking into account changes in the family environments in which nonresident fathers live.