On May 16, 2002, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 4737, the Personal Responsibility, Work, and Family Promotion Act of 2002, which, among other things, amends the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program to encourage states to make more efforts to promote marriage and, to a lesser extent, responsible fatherhood. The bill also earmarks substantial funds -- $1.6 billion -- focused almost exclusively for the promotion and support of marriage. In this paper, we describe and analyze the various family formation provisions in H.R. 4737 and offer recommendations for how the…
This paper provides an overview of family matters during incarceration as one means of informing public debate and actions in this emerging area of social policy and practice. The problems that families face when a parent is incarcerated and the strategies they use to manage those problems are described. The relevance of the maintenance of prisoners' family and parental relationships to societal and family goals are discussed and the ways in which social policies and administrative practices hinder or support family maintenance are examined. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article In his new book, The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families, James Q. Wilson argues that "in much of the Western and Caribbean worlds, marriage is in trouble." Wilson reports that the results have been devastating, especially for children. He calls for cultural and institutional changes that would strengthen marriage. Meanwhile, in a recent edition of The American Prospect, Janet C. Gornick argued that feminists are not opposed to marriage, and that feminists and conservatives should be able to find some common ground. For example, both would like to strengthen fathers' ties…
Over the past several decades, increasing numbers of U.S. children have been growing up fatherless. Recent research indicates several obstacles that stand in the way of these fathers providing a supportive and nurturing environment for their children. This document reports on the findings of focus groups of low-income fathers in Austin, Columbus, Minneapolis, and Philadelphia where some of these obstacles were identified. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Propositions from identity theory suggest that interactional and affective commitment to a role identity affects the psychological centrality of that role identity. In turn, the centrality of one's role identity translates into role performance. This conceptual model was tested with a sample of 186 fathers in first marriages with at least one child 18 years or younger. The results showed that fathers who perceive their wives as evaluating them positively as fathers were more likely to report higher levels of involvement in child-related activities and place greater importance on the father…
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Journal Article The authors use an ecological framework and grounded theoretical analysis to explore the circumstances in which working-class and low-income custodial African American fathers gain custody of their children; their transition from part-time to full-time parents; and the role of support networks in enhancing or inhibiting these men's parenting. Twenty-four men from an impoverished Midwestern urban area participated in the study. The findings suggest that these men, and perhaps others sharing their demographic profiles, generally become parents by default and are often reluctant to take on a…
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Journal Article Although research increasingly focuses on non-resident biological fathers, little attention has been given to the role of other men in children s lives. The authors examine the factors associated with social father presence and their influence on preschoolers development. Findings indicate that the majority of children have a social father and that mother, child, and nonresident biological father characteristics are all related to social father presence. These associations differ depending on whether the social father is the mother s romantic partner or a male relative. The social father s…
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Journal Article Drawing upon data from the What About Fathers study, a qualitative in-depth interview study with 510 low-income noncustodial fathers in three U.S. cities, Kathryn Edin, Timothy Nelson, and Rechelle Paranal, in their Institute for Policy Research working paper, Fatherhood and Incarceration as Potential Turning Points in the Criminal Careers of Unskilled Men, examine the effect of incarceration on men's involvement with their children, as well as the effect of fatherhood on their criminal careers. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article In Western societies, mothering and fathering are generally conceptualized as distinct social roles, marriage being considered as the institution which provides the best framework for child-rearing (nuclear family model). Yet it is important that health care practitioners recognize that children can be successfully raised in very diverse types of family organizations, including extended female-headed families. Although at first sight the extended family model appears to be lacking in male models and therefore seems to be defective, this article asserts that functional extended matrifocal…
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Journal Article This article documents the changes in men's experience of living with their own children. Data are drawn from seven Current Population Surveys (1965-1995) to identify trends in the likelihood of living with children, cohort differences in the experience of living with many children or with preschool age children, the timing of living with children, and variations in patterns by race and level of education. The data indicate that men's experience of living with children declined dramatically across cohorts. Residency with children decreased by 66 percent for men aged 20 to 24 and by 57 percent…
