Where Have All the Fathers Gone?

Americans generally understand that biological fathers today are more likely to live apart from their children now than were their counterparts thirty years ago.  Still, few realize just how dramatically the odds of such separation have risen.  To try to gauge the change in those odds with statistical precision, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan, the University of Massachusetts—Amherst, and Bowling Green State University recently took a close look at data collected between 1968 and 1997 for 1388 fathers, tracking their pattern of residence for the period.  Their results reveal a separation of fathers from children that most would regard as startling.

The authors of the new study report that “the observed probability of [fathers’] nonresidence [with their children] doubled over the three decades of the study period.”  The increasing probability of fathers’ separation from their children did not, however, rise steadily during the period in question.  The scholars sees “little change” in the likelihood of such separation for most of the 1970s, but limn “a sustained increase starting in the late 1970s and continuing through the late 1980s,” followed by “a leveling off during the 1990s.”  The explanation of the increasingly likely sundering of fathers from children is not far to seek: “Levels of union disruption [i.e., divorce] and nonmarital childbearing have led to increasing numbers of fathers living separately from their biological children.”

And the risk of father-child separation may actually have increased even more sharply than this new study indicates.  The researchers admit that the fathers who dropped out of their study sample may have been “more likely to experience nonresidence [with their children] than the fathers who remain[ed].”  Some of the fathers may indeed have dropped out of the study “precisely when they became nonresident [with their biological children].”  To the degree that the fathers who dropped out of this study were those especially likely to experience separation from their children, “the true probabilities of [paternal] nonresidence [with biological children] would be higher” than this new study shows.  “This is especially a concern,” the researchers concede, “for the later periods: Higher probabilities in those periods could mean that the risk of [paternal] nonresidence [with biological children] has not stabilized in the 1990s.”

And why are scholars tracking the separation of fathers from children so assiduously? The authors of the new study explain the reason for their scholarly concern in simple terms: “On average, children fare better when they live with both biological parents.”

(Source: Sanjiv Gupta, Pamela J. Smock, and Wendy D. Manning, “Moving Out: Transition to Nonresidence Among Resident Fathers in the United States, 1968-1997,” Journal of Marriage and Family 66 [2004]: 627-638, emphasis added.)

Men Dying Alone   

Men who live alone, without a spouse or children, very often die young.  The life-shortening effects of solitary living receive very close attention in a study recently published in Social Science & Medicine by public health researchers from Karolinska Institute, Umea University, and the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare.

Parsing data for 682,919 men drawn from Swedish national registers for 1985-1990, the authors of the new study calculated mortality rates for five groups: Men living with a spouse (or cohabiting partner) and their children; single-parent fathers with custody of their children; men living alone, apart from their children; childless men living with a spouse (or cohabiting partner); and childless men living alone.  Sharp differences in mortality rates separated these five groups, with men living alone, apart from their children, at greatest risk of premature death.  In comparison with men living with a wife (or partner) and their children, fathers living alone—without spouse (or partner) and apart from their children—experienced “almost 4 times as great a risk of all-cause mortality, 10 times of death from external violence, 13 times from fall and poisoning, almost 5 times from suicide, and 19 times from addiction.”

Mortality rates for childless men living alone ran almost as high, with all-cause mortality for such men running 3.4 times as high as that for men living with a spouse (or partner) and children.

Less dramatic, but still notably higher, mortality rates were documented for childless men living with a spouse (or partner) and for single-parent fathers with custody of their children: all-cause mortality for both groups stood at 1.7 times that for men living with a spouse (or partner) and children.

When the Swedish scholars analyzed their data with sophisticated statistical models that compensated for differences in health-selection effects (such as prior disease or illicit drug use) and for differences in socioeconomic status, they found that the differences in mortality rates for the various family groups were “greatly attenuated.”  Nonetheless, even in these sophisticated statistical models, “significantly elevated risks” remained for men living without a spouse (or partner) and for men living without children.

The Swedish scholars view their findings as confirmation of earlier studies in the United States and Sweden showing “higher mortality among the unmarried” than among the married.  However, the Swedish researchers see in their results evidence that “having children at home may be at least as important with regard to mortality risk as having a spouse.”  In explaining the life-prolonging effects of children in the home, the authors of the new study note that “children give structure to custodial parents’ lives; they provide much needed company and life-meaning, and also access to other adults (neighbors, close kin and friends).”  The Swedish scholars also cite as relevant a 1987 American study showing that “parenting reduce[s] the inclination [for both fathers and mothers] to adopt negative health behaviors more when children and parents live in the same residence than when they live separately.”

(Source: Gunilla Ringback Weitoft, Bo Burstrom, and Mans Rosen, “Premature mortality among lone fathers and childless men,” Social Science & Medicine 59 [2004]: 1449-1459.)

Reefer Madness in Miami   

Florida pushers find a remarkably favorable market for selling marijuana among young white adults who have spent their young adolescent years in a broken home.  The way family failure helps turn young whites into pot smokers has recently been documented in a study published in Public Health Reports by researchers at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Florida International University.

The authors of the new study sought to identify the adolescent antecedents of young-adult drug-use by correlating drug-use data collected in 1998-2000 for 1803 Miami-area young adults (ages 19-21) whose familial, psychological, behavioral, and academic characteristics were determined through school surveys administered in 1990-91 (grades 6 and 7) and again in 1993 (grades 8 and 9).  Among white (European American) young adults, the study results revealed an incidence of marijuana abuse or dependence almost twice as high among those who had been living in a “non-nuclear family” during either of the young-adolescent surveys as among peers living in intact families (Odds Ratios of 1.8 for both antecedent time periods; p < 0.05 for both antecedent time periods).

The Florida scholars acknowledge the peculiarity of establishing a strong statistical correlation to life experiences seven to ten years before the outcome being monitored.  But in the persistence of such correlations linking young-adult marijuana dependence to an adolescence spent in a broken home (or enmeshed in other unfavorable psychological, academic, and behavioral circumstances), the researchers see a potent reminder that “early adolescence is a unique period because it is a time of biological changes linked to puberty as well as changes in social skills, [and] educational expectations...It is also a period of intensive experimentation and risk-taking, which creates a context for peer initiation into substance use.  For these reasons, exposure to risk factors [such as a broken home] during early adolescence may set in motion processes that will affect the individual during adulthood.”

(Source: Andres G. Gil, William A. Vega, and R. Jay Turner, “Early and Mid-Adolescence Risk Factors for Later Substance Abuse by African Americans and European Americans,” Public Health Reports 117.S1 [2002]: S15-S28.)

The Ancestry of Ozzie & Harriet  

Believing that the family ideal of the 1950s — where the father is breadwinner and the mother manages the household and the children — is a twentieth-century construct, many sociologists welcome the movement of mothers into the paid laborforce, thinking that it represents a recovery of a pre-industrial model of the family where husband and wife shared joint economic roles.

However, Birgit Pfau-Effinger of the University of Hamburg argues in The British Journal of Sociology that the development of the “housewife family model” in Western Europe was not as uniform or as tied to industrialization as sociologists presume. In her comparative study of three countries, she finds that the breadwinner/homemaker model never emerged as a cultural norm in Finland during industrialization and emerged only “after a certain delay” of industrialization in Germany. But in Holland, the model was the culturally dominant family norm as early as the seventeenth-century, “long before there was any question of a transition to industrialization.” Even before the model had become the norm, its roots date back, she claims, to the fifteenth century.

The early appearance of “the male breadwinner marriage” is not the only thing that impresses Pfau-Effinger about Holland. “This model was applied in broad sections of the [Dutch] population, in cities as well as rural areas, with the exception of the poorer sandy regions. It had become firmly established here much earlier historically and more profoundly than in any other country ... and it was accompanied by the separation of gainful employment and housework.”

Believing that urbanization, especially the rise of the bourgeoisie, is more responsible for the housewife family model than industrialization, the researcher links its prominence in Holland to the country’s economic prowess. “In the seventeenth century, the Netherlands was the most important and richest trading nation in the world. It had thriving towns where a broad urban bourgeoisie set the tone and achieved social and cultural hegemony.” She therefore concludes: “It appears that the achievement of a certain general societal prosperity was important, by which it was possible to ‘free’ one member of each family from income-generating duties.”

While the German professor doesn’t make this call, her research suggests that the family and economic achievements of seventeenth-century Holland should be celebrated, not lamented. Furthermore, her study suggests that the contemporary push to return mothers to income-generating duties turns back the clock, as feminists are want to say, much further than most Americans realize.

(Source: Birgit Pfau-Effinger, “Socio-Historical Paths of the Male Breadwinner Model: An Explanation of Cross-National Differences,” The British Journal of Sociology 55 [2004]: 377-398.)

The Downside of Sending Single Moms to Work  

Welfare reform has brought about a 60 percent decrease in the welfare caseload, although ironically without a corresponding decrease in welfare expenditures. While politicians are quick to boast about the related increase in the employment rate of single mothers, a new study by Karen A. Randolph at Florida State University suggests that getting these mothers out of the home may introduce a new set of problems, especially for their adolescent children.

Exploring the impact of maternal employment—especially the changes in maternal employment—on high school dropout rates, Randolph conducted a study of 675 at-risk youth who were enrolled in ninth grade in an urban school district in the 1992-93 or 1993-94 school years and whose mothers were enrolled in AFDC and or the national Jobs Opportunity and Basic Skills program between 1993 and 1994. She also tracked the employment of these mothers between 1994 and 1997 using state unemployment insurance system data.

Her first two statistical models found paradoxically that maternal income yielded a positive association with staying in school and that maternal employment was correlated with dropping out (both variables, p < .01). Her third model, however, found that employment changes strengthened the relationship between maternal employment and dropping out. Each time a mother moves in or out of employment, the dropout risk for her child increases 6 percent relative to other students. The fourth model found that among mothers who experienced five or more employment status changes, students are 36 percent more likely to drop out than students whose mothers experienced less job status changes.

Randolph acknowledges the need for studies that look at stable maternal employment patterns. But the fact that 18 percent of the students in this study lived in households were the mothers changed employment status five or more times in less than five years, she suggests that policymakers need to think more carefully about the impact of welfare reform measures on the lives of the next generation.

(Source: Karen A. Randolph et al., “Examining the Impact of Changes in Maternal Employment on High School Completion Among Low-Income Youth,” Journal of Family and Economic Issues 25 [2004]: 279-299.)

Postmodern Postadolescence  

Five years ago, Kay Hymowitz of the Manhattan Institute coined the phrase “postmodern postadolescence” to describe the phenomenon glorified on now-syndicated television hits like Seinfeld and Friends: young Americans in their twenties and thirties living like teenagers rather than as adults. Conspicuously missing from the lives of these young people are marriage and parenthood (at least marital parenthood), which as late as the 1970s were considered rites of passage to responsible adulthood.

Seeking to understand this prolonged adolescence, a study by Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. of the University of Pennsylvania finds that young Americans no longer associate marriage and parenthood with adulthood as they once did. Furstenberg and his colleagues added questions about perceptions of adulthood to the 2002 wave of the General Social Survey, which polls 1,400 Americans every two years. Almost half of the respondents did not believe that marriage or childbearing was necessary to be considered an adult. “Compared with their parents and grandparents ... young people today more often view these [marriage and parenthood] as life choices, not requirements.”

Perhaps as a consequence of the disconnect between marriage and adulthood, Furstenberg’s analysis of U.S. Census data finds that the transition to adulthood has grown “arguably longer” than in any time in American history. In 1960, 65 percent of 30-year-old men and 77 percent of 30-year-old women had completed five adult transitions (leaving home, finishing school, becoming financially independent, getting married, and having a child); by 2000, only 31 percent of such men and 46 percent of such women had completed these transitions.

The decrease is especially dramatic among 25-year-old women: in 1960, 70 percent had achieved adulthood status; by 2000, only 25 percent had done so. Although the exclusion of marriage and kids from adulthood standards dramatically narrows the difference, an adulthood gap between 1960 and 2000 still remains for both men and women.

While their diagnosis is good, the researchers grasp for all sorts of external factors sans personal choices connected to these trends: longer schooling, the longer time to secure family-wage paying jobs, “growing inequality,” “curtailed government support,” and “weaknesses in the primary institutions” (schools and the military) that facilitate the transition to adulthood. Typical of the sociology industry, they call for more government programs to support young adults. But given the legacy of social programs in retarding responsible adulthood and contributing to the nation’s retreat from the key adult-generating institution — marriage — is this really the answer?

(Source: Frank F. Furstenberg, Jr. et al., “Growing Up Is Hard to Do,” Contexts 3 [2004]: http://www.contextsmagazine.org/content_sample_v3-3.php.)

Fatherless, Rootless  

Why are young women reared in single-parent homes especially likely to bear a child out of wedlock?   Why are young men and women reared in single-parent homes particularly likely to drop out of school?  In a study recently completed at Western Washington University, sociologists have concluded that adolescents from single-parent homes are especially likely to end up in bad situations largely because their mothers move frequently and because all too often those moves land them and their offspring in tough neighborhoods.

Examining data collected between 1968 and 1993 from a nationally representative sample of American families, the Western Washington scholars established — just as they had expected — that female adolescents who had lived in a single-parent home were much more likely than peers from two-parent homes to bear a child out of wedlock (p < 0.001).  The researchers calculate that “the odds of experiencing a premarital pregnancy are two times higher for those from solo single-parent families than for those from other family types.” They likewise established that adolescents of both sexes were far more likely to drop out of school if they came from a single-parent family than if they came from a two-parent family (p < 0.001).  The data indicate that “a 25-point increase in the percentage of time spent with a solo single parent during childhood increases the odds of dropping out by about 32%.” 

In further statistical scrutiny of the data, the Western Washington scholars trace much of the distinctive vulnerability of teens from single-parent homes to their lack of residential stability and to the poor quality of the neighborhoods they end up living in. They thus reason that adolescents from single-parent homes (almost always single-mother homes) are at risk largely because of “the types of neighborhoods to which [they] are exposed and the frequency of residential mobility.”

Apparently, single mothers find it difficult to give their teenage children the advantage of living in a stable home in a good neighborhood.

(Source: Kyle Crowder and Jay Teachman, “Do Residential Conditions Explain the Relationship Between Living Arrangements and Adolescent Behavior?” Journal of Marriage and Family 66 [2004]: 721-738.)