Father involvement with their nonmarital children: Patterns, determinants,and effects on their earnings

The expanding consensus about the advantages of two-parent families, togeth er with the rising number of children growing up without the presence of bo th parents, has stimulated policy-makers to look for ways of increasing fat hers' involvement. This paper examines two sets of questions relevant to th ese policy initiatives. The first concerns the patterns of involvement betw een fathers and children born outside of marriage. The paper defines father involvement as a continuum ranging from no visitation, to frequent visitat ion, to co-residence with the child, and to co-residence along with marryin g the mother. We examine this involvement in specific years and over time. One key finding is that most fathers of nonmarital children in their late t wenties and early thirties are highly involved with at least one of their n onmarital children. In addition, we find that cohabiting relationships and frequent visitation are often unstable, sometimes changing toward lower inv olvement, while in other cases changing toward higher degrees of involvemen t. A second question we address in this paper is whether father involvement leads to increased earnings. We find a positive relationship between incre ased involvement of fathers and their subsequent hours of work and earnings .