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Title: Father Involvement with Their Nonmarital Children: Patterns, Determinants and Effects on Their Earnings
Resulting in 1 citation.
1. Lerman, Robert I.
Sorensen, Elaine
Father Involvement with Their Nonmarital Children: Patterns, Determinants and Effects on Their Earnings
Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996
Cohort(s): NLSY79
Publisher: Author
Keyword(s): Child Support; Coresidence; Earnings; Fathers, Absence; Fathers, Involvement; Fertility; Welfare

Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher.

Ensuring that nonresident fathers are financially responsible for their children vial a major theme of the recent welfare reform legislation enacted into law this summer. One segment of that population--fathers who had their children outside of marriage--has been particularly difficult to incorporate into the formal child support enforcement system. Many practitioners who work with unwed fathers argue that this population can be reached, however, by connecting them to their children. The purpose of this research project is to ascertain whether we can identify a causal link between father involvement with their nonmarital children and increased earnings in a national survey of young men. This paper describes our preliminary findings. We define father involvement somewhat differently than previous research, by including co-residence as well as visitation in our measure of father involvement. We find that most fathers of nonmarital children in their late twenties and early thirties are highly involved with at least one of their nonmarital children. We also find that cohabiting relationships and frequent visitation are often unstable, sometimes changing toward lower and higher degrees of involvement. Our preliminary findings with regard to earnings and father involvement suggest that visitation by itself, is unlikely to generate the earnings gains that living with the child seems to accomplish.
Bibliography Citation
Lerman, Robert I. and Elaine Sorensen. "Father Involvement with Their Nonmarital Children: Patterns, Determinants and Effects on Their Earnings." Presented: Bethesda, MD, Conference on Father Involvement, October 1996.