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Journal Article This article provides the first individual-level estimates of the change over time in the probability of nonresidence for initially resident fathers in the United States. Drawing on the 1968-1997 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we used discrete-time event history models to compute the probabilities of nonresidence for six 5-year periods. Our sample consists of men (N = 1,388) who are coresident with their biological children at the time of birth. We found that the observed probability of nonresidence doubled over the three decades of the study period, but not linearly. The risk…
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Journal Article Using life history interviews with 40 noncustodial fathers in Chicago and 37 incarcerated fathers in Indiana, I explore the construction of paternal provider roles in low-income and working-class families. Fathers with stable jobs retained high expectations for providing but found that employment could limit and even harm paternal involvement. Underemployed fathers, or fathers out of work, lowered expectations for providing and crafted a version of involvement that was more than just providing. The study suggests that a focus on context and process can expand theoretical frameworks of work/…
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Journal Article Rooted in a qualitative research project with 70 stay-at-home fathers in Canada, this paper explores the ways that work and family interact for fathers who "trade cash for care." While fathers are at home, they also remain connected to traditionally masculine sources of identity such as paid work and they take on unpaid masculine self-provisioning work at home and community work that builds on traditional male interests. They thus carve out complex sets of relations between home, paid and unpaid work, community work, and their own sense of masculinity. Narratives from stay-at-home fathers…
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Training Materials This workbook presents curriculum guidelines for Batterer Intervention Programs (BIPs) working with fathers who have been violent. The materials address men in their roles as fathers or father figures to children, and are designed to increase men's awareness of the effects on children of domestic violence, motivation to stop abusive behavior, capacity for healing and having constructive relationships with their children, and support of their partner's parenting. The curriculum guidelines center around three included parenting exercises that are meant to be implemented over a four-to-six…
In this paper, we document the continuing decline in employment and labor force participation of black men between the ages of 16 and 34 who have a high school education or less. We explore the extent to which these trends can be accounted for in recent years by two fairly new developments: (1) the dramatic growth in the number of young black men who have been incarcerated and (2) strengthened enforcement of child support policies. We use micro-level data from the Current Population Survey Outgoing Rotation Groups, along with state-level data over time on incarceration rates and child…
