One in six newborns were born poor over the past 40 years, and nearly half remained poor half their childhoods. These persistently poor children are nearly 90 percent more likely than never-poor children to enter their 20s without completing high school and are four times more likely to give birth outside of marriage during their teenage years. Children whose parents did not complete high school are less likely to complete high school themselves. This paper examines the magnitude of child poverty, family characteristics related to childhood poverty persistence, and childhood poverty's lasting…
Demonstrating the urgent need for broad national action and collaboration between private and public leaders in our communities, The White House Council for Community Solutions released an analysis showing that in 2011 alone, taxpayers shouldered more than $93 billion to compensate for lost taxes and direct costs to support the young people disconnected from jobs and school. At least one in six young adults is disconnected from education and work, according to this report. Projections show that over the lifetime of these young people, taxpayers will assume a $1.6 trillion burden to meet the…
Unpublished Paper
The present study examined the influence that father's residency status and father-child relational qualities have on adolescent psychological adjustment, behavioral outcomes, scholastic achievement, self-identity acculturation, and the subjective well-being of Chinese male immigrants from intact, two-parent households. The relational qualities of interest under investigation consisted of father-son attachment, father involvement, and father acceptance-rejection, from the phenomenological perception of children. A total of 86 participants were included in the overall multivariate analyses -…
Unpublished Paper
The purpose of this study was to examine longitudinally how father involvement mediates the relationship between a variety of factors thought to influence the father-child relationship and later child cognitive development. The Responsible Fathering Framework was used as a conceptual model to test items collected in a large national data set (Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort Study [ECLS-B]). Latent variables were constructed from the ECLS-B when the child was 9-months, 2-years, and 4-years among a sub sample of married resident biological fathers using exploratory and…
Unpublished Paper
The lack of research about Black fathers and their involvement with schools was the primary motivation for this mixed method dissertation study. This discourse provides a much-needed account of what the nature is of Black father's involvement with schools, why and how they do it, and how student performance is influenced by Black fathers' engagement with schools. Stakeholders in the education of youth, parents, administrators, teachers, and the community whose work is concerned with Black education may learn from the results and not repeat past errors of prevailing notions that portray Black…
High rates of incarceration in the United States have motivated a far-reaching literature examining the effects of parental incarceration on child wellbeing. Although a growing body of evidence documents challenges facing the children of incarcerated men, most incarcerated fathers lived apart from their children before their arrest, raising the question of whether they were sufficiently involved with their families for their incarceration to affect their children. We use the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=4,071) to examine father involvement among incarcerated fathers, both…
This guide offers preliminary policy and program recommendations for State, local, and tribal administrators and practitioners committed to addressing the complex needs of pregnant and parenting youth in foster care. It is designed to help child welfare systems and their partner agencies and organizations assess strengths and gaps in their current array of policies and services, and to determine priorities to achieve better results for pregnant and parenting youth in foster care and their children. The guide is divided into five domains: State infrastructure for service delivery, financing,…
The purpose of this guide is to provide a comprehensive set of resources for jurisdictions interested in addressing the needs of pregnant and parenting youth in foster care.The guide is organized into three major program categories: 1) Parenting Supports; 2) Developmental Supports for Children and Parents, including Health Care and Trauma-Informed Supports; and 3) Preparation for Adulthood, including Education and Housing. Evidence of effectiveness is listed in each of the program descriptions, which includes rating information from Evidence-Based Clearinghouses or any other information of…
In response to dramatic increases in imprisonment, a burgeoning literature considers the consequences of incarceration for family life, almost always documenting negative consequences. But the effects of incarceration may be more complicated and nuanced and, in this paper, we consider the countervailing consequences of paternal incarceration for both fathers' and mothers' parenting. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study and a rigorous research design, we find recent paternal incarceration sharply diminishes the parenting behaviors of residential fathers…
