Carlson Marcia J, McLanahan Sara S, Brooks-Gunn Jeanne
School of Social Work, Columbia University, 1255 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA.
Demography. 2008 May;45(2):461-88. doi: 10.1353/dem.0.0007.
We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to investigate the association between coparenting quality and nonresident fathers' involvement with children over the first five years after a nonmarital birth. We find that about one year after a nonmarital birth, 48% of fathers are living away from their child, rising to 56% and then to 63% at three and five years, respectively Using structural equation models to estimate cross-lagged effects, we find that positive coparenting is a strong predictor of nonresident fathers' future involvement, whereas fathers' involvement is only a weak (but significant) predictor of future coparenting quality. The positive effect of coparenting quality on fathers' involvement is robust across several techniques designed to address unobserved heterogeneity and across different strategies for handling missing data. We conclude that parents' ability to work together in rearing their common child across households helps keep nonresident fathers connected to their children and that programs aimed at improving parents' ability to communicate may have benefits for children irrespective of whether the parents' romantic relationship remains intact.
我们利用“脆弱家庭与儿童福祉研究”的数据，来调查非婚生育后头五年间共同养育质量与非居住型父亲对子女的参与度之间的关联。我们发现，非婚生育约一年后，48%的父亲与孩子不住在一起，到三年和五年时，这一比例分别升至56%和63%。通过结构方程模型来估计交叉滞后效应，我们发现积极的共同养育是预测非居住型父亲未来参与度的有力指标，而父亲的参与度对未来共同养育质量的预测作用则较弱（但显著）。共同养育质量对父亲参与度的积极影响，在旨在解决未观察到的异质性的几种技术以及处理缺失数据的不同策略中都很稳健。我们得出结论，父母在跨家庭共同养育子女方面的合作能力有助于保持非居住型父亲与子女的联系，并且旨在提高父母沟通能力的项目可能对孩子有益，无论父母的浪漫关系是否依然完好。
