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Journal Article Despite substantial policy attention to increasing the number of custodial parents with child support orders, the proportion reporting that they are owed child support is falling. Potential explanations for this include increases in shared custody, increases in the number of noncustodial parents who have low incomes (or incomes lower than the custodial parent), and growing discretion to decide whether to participate in the formal child support system. We use data on about 4,000 divorces in Wisconsin that allow us to evaluate these alternative explanations, differentiating between divorces in…
Father Facts 7 contains the research you need to be more effective in your work to promote involved, responsible, and committed fatherhood. As with past editions, it includes abstracts of the most recent studies, published since the last edition, and helpful tables that organize the data on rates of father absence. For this edition, we added brief summaries at the start of each chapter and section on the state of the research in each area that distills what we know related to that fatherhood-related topic. (Author abstract)
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Journal Article Marriage between two parents, compared with other family living arrangements, appears, on average, to enhance children's wellbeing and development. Some of the positive association between marriage and children's wellbeing comes from positive associations between marriage and other things that also contribute to children's wellbeing. David Ribar first sets up a standard economic rational-choice model to show that, all else equal, marriage should produce advantages that can improve children’s wellbeing, such as better coordination between parents and economies of scale that make limited…
This toolkit uses a backdrop of significant historical events as a foundation for understanding perspectives, improving communication, and strengthening relationships when working with American Indian/Alaskan Native families, couples, and individuals. This toolkit will help service providers acquire cultural competence and covers important topics in the research literature with input from experts in the field. This toolkit provides practical suggestions for engaging and serving this population, particularly for incorporating healthy marriage and relationship education skills into service…
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Journal Article When their children are born, most unmarried parents have high expectations for the future, but they are particularly vulnerable to financial and relationship instability. Their children are disproportionately likely to experience negative health and wellbeing outcomes, in part because of low father involvement. We provide an overview of the findings in this area, drawing primarily from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and two studies conducted by the Child and Family Research Partnership at The University of Texas at Austin. We conclude that father involvement is largely a…
The Responsible Fatherhood, Healthy Marriage and Family Strengthening Grants for Incarcerated and Reentering Fathers and Their Partners (MFS-IP) initiative was established in 2006 by the federal Office of Family Assistance (OFA), and required grantees serve fathers who were either incarcerated or recently released, as well as their spouses or committed partners. The grantees were required to deliver services to support healthy marriage and were also permitted to provide activities designed to improve parenting and support economic stability. From 2006 to 2011, the 12 MFS-IP sites delivered a…
