Nonresident Father Involvement and Mothers' Investments in Own Education and Training

Background and Purpose:

One half of children in the US will spend part of their childhood living with a single parent (most often their mother). Because children in such households have less access to parental resources, including both money and time, they are much more likely to be poor and to fare worse on various domains of well-being compared to children in two-parent families. Evidence suggests that nonresident fathers’ involvement can reduce poverty and material hardship in these families, and can improve children’s health and development. The potential benefits of nonresident fathers’ involvement have been hypothesized to affect children directly and indirectly through their effects on mothers. However, much less research has examined the associations of nonresident father involvement with mothers’ well-being. In this paper, we examine the associations between nonresident fathers’ involvement and mothers’ investments in their own education and training. These investments may improve a mother’s opportunities in the labor market, increase household resources, and enhance her self-esteem and parenting, which should contribute to overall well-being for herself and her children.

 

Methods:

Analyses are based on five waves of data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, which follows approximately 5000 children born in large US cities between 1998 and 2000. The study sample is limited to mothers who are not currently living with the father of the focal child. Fathers’ involvement and mothers’ educational investments are measured at four follow-up periods, when children are 1, 3, 5, and 9 years old, and data are pooled across waves (N=4700 observations on 2400 unique children). Outcomes include mothers’ education at each wave, whether she is currently participating in any training or educational activity, and whether she has upgraded her educational qualifications since the prior wave (e.g., obtained a bachelor’s degree). Nonresident fathers’ involvement includes his provision of material support (formal and informal cash child support and in-kind support), contact with children, frequency of engagement in various activities, and positive coparenting. Analyses are based on logistic, ordered logit, and linear probability regression models with rich controls, as well as individual fixed effects to address unobserved differences across families that could be driving both fathers’ involvement and mothers’ educational investments.

 

Results:

Overall one-third of mothers in the analysis sample increased their educational attainment between the birth of the focal child and approximately 9-years later. Nonresident fathers’ provision of formal cash support (but not other forms of involvement) is associated with a greater likelihood that mothers increased their educational attainment and that they earned a bachelor’s degree at each wave.  These results are robust to inclusion of rich controls (e.g. mothers’ cognitive skills) and individual fixed effects.   

Conclusions and Implications:

Findings from this study suggest that nonresident fathers’ formal support contributions contribute to a mother’s likelihood of continuing and enhancing her education, which should lead to enhanced self-esteem, better opportunities in the job market, greater economic security, and ultimately improved well-being for her and her children.