The Role of Nonresident Fathers in Mother's Child Care and Employment

Background and Purpose: Prior research shows that the majority of mothers with young children use non-maternal child care regularly. Prior research has also examined the impacts of the different characteristics of child care on mother’s employment. However, studies of child care use among single mothers have ignored a potential source of care. For a mother of children whose father lives elsewhere, direct child care by the nonresident father can be another important resource for the mother. There is little evidence on whether nonresident fathers provide care or on whether such care by nonresident fathers can help mothers to deal with various child care problems in her employment. To begin to fill this research gap, this study aims to answer two related questions: 1) Do nonresident fathers provide direct child care? How is this provision related to mother’s utilization of other types of child care arrangements? 2) Does nonresident father’s child care reduce child care problems (i.e., missing work caused by difficulties in accommodating childcare to work schedule) for employed resident mothers?

Methods: The study uses data from the mother interviews in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study. The data follows a cohort of nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000 and collects a variety of information about the child and both parents at the child’s birth and again when children are ages one, three, five, and nine. To capture nonresident father’s child care, the current study uses questions that ask how often the father looks after the child and whether the mother can count on the father for help when she needs someone to look after the child. Using these variables, the study first documents overall trajectories of nonresident father’s child care over different ages of the child, and explores how nonresident father’s child care is related to other types of child care arrangements. Then, this study examines the role of nonresident father’s child care in mother’s dealing with child care problems.

Results: Results show that about 40% of resident mothers have nonresident fathers who provide child care at the child’s age of three and also suggest that nonresident father’s child care help mothers to reduce child care problems. Logit models show that nonresident father’s child care is associated with: (a) the extent to which the mother experience difficulty in dealing with child care problems during working hours and (b) work absenteeism caused by unreliability of the main child care arrangements.

Conclusions and Implications: This is one of the first studies of nonresident father’s child care and its role in mother’s child care and employment; if also extends our general understanding of nonresident fathers’ involvement. The study concludes with a discussion of the implication on child care policy and child support policy to better serve parents and children in vulnerable and complex families.