Half of non-resident fathers juggling more than one set of children

EDITORS: Father’s Day is Sunday, June 17.

ANN ARBOR—About half of U.S. fathers who don’t live with their biological children also have family ties to another set of children, and 24 percent have three or more groups of children in their lives, according to a University of Michigan researcher.

These children may include non-resident biological children of other former mates, biological children and stepchildren who live with the men, and stepchildren who live elsewhere.

“Many non-resident fathers have quite complex parenting responsibilities,” says Pamela J. Smock, a sociologist at the Population Studies Center of the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and research organization. Smock is a co-author of the study, the first to use national data to provide a complete portrait of the parenting obligations of non-resident fathers, with sociologists Wendy Manning of Bowling Green State University and Susan Stewart of the University of Richmond.

Their analysis of 649 fathers with non-resident biological children under the age of 18, drawn from the National Survey of Families and Households, was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

About 24 percent of non-resident fathers have three or more groups of children in their lives, the researchers found, including about 8 percent who have two or more sets of biological children who are not living with them.

Even for fathers highly skilled in allocating whatever emotional and financial resources they possess, the complexity of contemporary paternal responsibilities must present a challenge, according to the researchers.

About 8 percent of all non-resident fathers are living with biological children fathered prior to their current union, while about 26 percent are living with stepchildren. About 14 percent of non-resident fathers are living with women who are also non-resident parents. And about 42 percent have biological children with their current spouse or partner.

“These estimates are likely to be conservative,” the researchers note, “because some men may be reluctant to ‘count’ other children when answering survey questions. But recent rates of non-marital childbearing, divorce, cohabitation, and remarriage suggest that highly complex family configurations are quite common.”

The researchers examined how the complexity of parenting ties was linked to visitation and child support fathers paid to non-resident children. Overall, they found that 78 percent of the fathers paid child support, and about 30 percent of the fathers visited their children at least once a week.

But after controlling for paternal education and income, the income of the father’s spouse or partner, and other factors, Manning, Stewart, and Smock also found that non-resident dads with just one set of children visited those children more often and were more likely to pay child support.

They also found that the spouses or partners of non-resident fathers were important sources of influence. “The higher the incomes of spouses or partners, the easier it is for men both to visit and financially support their children,” the researchers note. “These women are all non-resident stepmothers, and possibly other types of parents as well. But they are often treated as being invisible parents, when in fact they appear to matter a great deal.”

According to Smock, the findings suggest that policies designed to engage men in the lives of non-resident children should pay particular attention to those men who have potentially competing parenting responsibilities.

“Perhaps child support policies should somehow account for the reality that a substantial share of non-resident fathers face complex parenting roles,” she says. “At times, current policies may pit the interests of one group or children against another. Effective policies require that the full array of non-resident parenting roles be acknowledged rather than overlooked.”

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Established in 1948, the Institute for Social Research (ISR) is among the world’s oldest survey research organizations, and a world leader in the development and application of social science methodology. ISR conducts some of the most widely-cited studies in the nation, including the Survey of Consumer Attitudes, the National Election Studies, the Monitoring the Future Study, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, the Health and Retirement Study, and the National Survey of Black Americans. ISR researchers also collaborate with social scientists in more than 60 nations on the World Values Surveys and other projects, and the Institute has established formal ties with universities in Poland, China, and South Africa. Visit the ISR Web site at www.isr.umich.edu for more information.

Pamela J. SmockNational Survey of Families and HouseholdsSurvey of Consumer Attitudes