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Journal Article
This longitudinal study focused on fathers' involvement from the prenatal period through infants' first year in Dominican immigrants (n = 73), Mexican immigrants (n = 65) and African Americans (n = 66) residing in New York City. Fathers' prenatal involvement, the quality of the mother-father relationship, fathers' postnatal involvement with their 1- and 6 month olds and fathers' involvement with their 14 month-olds (i.e., time spent with infant; eating meals with infant; activities with infant) were examined. Father involvement was uniformly high and stable. Fathers' prenatal involvement…
Brief
There are 4.3 million Native Americans in the United States. They represent 562 different tribes and speak 292 different languages. Yet, they make up only 1.5% of the total U.S. population and are the second smallest ethnic group in the U.S. This Research Brief is designed to offer an overview of the health and socioeconomic status of Native Americans, to describe varying definitions of family across tribes, and to discuss various aspects of historical trauma and how this trauma has affected the overall well-being of most tribes and their family systems. Finally, this brief will discuss what…
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Journal Article
In 1965, Daniel Patrick Moynihan argued that the black family was nearing "complete breakdown" due to high rates of out-of-wedlock childbearing. In subsequent decades, nonmarital childbearing rose dramatically for all racial groups and unwed fathers were often portrayed as being absent from their children's lives. The authors examine contemporary nonmarital father involvement using quantitative evidence from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and qualitative evidence from in-depth interviews with 150 unmarried fathers. The authors find that father involvement drops sharply after…
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Journal Article
Following divorce or separation, father-child contact is deemed an important influence on child development. Previous research has explored the impact of sociodemographic and attitudinal factors on the amount of contact between fathers and their children following a union dissolution. This article revisits this important question using fathers' reports on a sample of 859 children from newly available survey data. Multilevel random intercept models are used to reassess the influence of child- and father-level factors on the amount of reported contact. Results show that the amount of father-…
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Journal Article
The effects of father absence on children have been well documented in research and range from increased risk of poverty, to increased risk of incarceration (Anderson et al. Family Relations 51(2):148-155, 2002). This study presents a longitudinal evaluation of young fathers involvement with their children conducted within the scope of a teen parenting program in Arlington County, Virginia. The respondents in the study are young, mainly Hispanic fathers who come from lower socio-economic groups. The theoretical foundation for the parenting program was derived from Prochaska's Transtheoretical…
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Journal Article
The study includes a longitudinal sample of 1,989 fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study and examines factors associated with fathering a higher-order birth (three or more children) and compares these factors to those predicting any subsequent birth. Also, the article examines differences by marital status. Logistic regression analyses indicate the likelihood of fathering a higher-order birth is greater among more disadvantaged men in urban contexts, those with lower levels of education, the unmarried, minorities, and those exhibiting higher levels of depressive…
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Journal Article
Although much research has focused on how imprisonment transforms the life course of disadvantaged black men, researchers have paid little attention to how parental imprisonment alters the social experience of childhood. This article estimates the risk of parental imprisonment by age 14 for black and white children born in 1978 and 1990. This article also estimates the risk of parental imprisonment for children whose parents did not fi nish high school, fi nished high school only, or attended college. Results show the following: (1) 1 in 40 white children born in 1978 and 1 in 25 white…
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Journal Article
The purpose of this study was to examine ethnic and marital status differences in family structure, risk behaviors and service requests among African American and Hispanic adolescent fathers participating in a community-based fatherhood program. Demographic factors, risk behaviors, and service requests were gathered at program entry. The results indicated that each group demonstrated distinct patterns associated with family structure, sexual risk behaviors, substance use, and criminal behavior. In comparison to African American fathers, Hispanic fathers were younger and were more likely to be…
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Journal Article
Policy makers are cognizant that ending welfare as we know it will not translate into the end of poverty among solo-mothering families. Thus, they have focused on promoting marriage and fatherhood among what are now termed "fragile families." The purpose of this study is to describe the lived experiences of Black men, who are among the targets of fatherhood and marriage promotion programs. To accomplish this goal, this exploratory study relies on a phenomenological approach. The value of employing this approach is that it is suitable for excavating and surfacing deep issues. More importantly…
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Journal Article
This study explored the lived experience of parenting that may inform individual health practices and behavior of young, ethnic minority, primarily Latino parents, participants in a HIV prevention intervention. Narrative accounts from parents (N = 90) were analyzed to illuminate the impact of parental protectiveness and aspirations for the child. Focus groups (n = 23) were utilized to generate a nuanced understanding of young parenthood. Self-reflective, complex, and multidimensional perspectives on parental protectiveness emerged along themes: (a) "growing up thoughtful," (b) "you gotta…
