As described in earlier articles, children whose parents have higher income and education levels are more likely to grow up in stable two-parent households than their economically disadvantaged counterparts. These widening gaps in fathers' involvement in parenting and in the quality and stability of parents' relationships may reinforce disparities in outcomes for the next generation. This paper reviews evidence about the effectiveness of two strategies to strengthen fathers' involvement and family relationships-- fatherhood programs aimed at disadvantaged noncustodial fathers and relationship…
The Building Strong Families evaluation is a multisite, random-assignment evaluation of a relationship skills education program for unmarried parents. From Mathematica Policy Research, this report evaluates the impact of a partnership between the Building Strong Families program and the Child Support Division of the Texas Office of the Attorney General. Researchers evaluate the partnership in terms of child support outcomes, including paternity establishment, child support orders, and child support payments.
There are a number of reasons why we might expect that family structure would be affected by Wisconsin's experimental child support policy that allowed all support paid by nonresident fathers of children on welfare to be passed through to the mother and fully disregarded in calculating cash assistance. The fathers may be encouraged to take more financial responsibility for their children if the support is passed through in full and disregarded in calculating benefit checks. The fathers may be more connected to the mothers of their children than fathers whose support payments are only in part…
A simple model of fatherhood and marriage choice implies that stricter child support enforcement will tend to reduce nonmarital childbearing by raising the costs of fatherhood. We investigate this hypothesis by examining nonmarital childbearing during 1980-1993, a period when child support policy and enforcement underwent enormous changes. We use a sample of women from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, to which we add information on state child support enforcement. We examine childbearing behavior between the ages of 15 and 44, both before marriage and during periods of nonmarriage…
Effective policies to promote responsible fatherhood must rely on more than mere exhortations. Many fathers need significant assistance in becoming financially responsible for or emotionally involved with their children, whether it be job training or other employment services, or intensive case management and counseling. The model programs described in this report are outstanding examples of effective strategies for helping fathers and they deserve replication nationwide. Coupled with work requirements and increasingly tough enforcement of child support, these programs should go a long way…
In late 1997, the federal Office of Child Support Enforcement (OCSE) funded Responsible Fatherhood Demonstration Projects in eight states. All of these programs attempt to improve the employment and earnings of under- and unemployed noncustodial parents, and to motivate them to become more financially and emotionally involved in the lives of their children. Although the projects share common goals, they do not follow a single format or a specific model of service delivery. This report is an early implementation analysis of the programs focusing on: (1) how they are administered; (2) the types…
This report is based on research conducted for the Parents' Fair Share Demonstration, a national demonstration project that combined job training and placement, peer support groups, and other services with the goal of increasing the earnings and child support payments of unemployed noncustodial parents (usually fathers) of children on welfare, improving their parenting and communication skills, and providing an opportunity for them to participate more fully and effectively in the lives of their children. (Author abstract).
