Longitudinal relationships between unmarried fathers' involvement and their children's behavior problems: Using latent growth modeling

Jeong-Kyun Choi, Minsung Kim and Gina M. Kunz

Children and Youth Services Review, 2018, vol. 91, issue C, 424-430

Abstract: Using a sample of 3409 unmarried mothers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, this study examined the longitudinal relationships between unmarried fathers' involvement on behavior problems of children ages from one through five, after accounting for the effects of mothers' socioeconomic status, psychological health, and parenting stress. The results from our latent growth structural equation model showed that the longitudinal effects of unmarried fathers' involvement on their children's behavior problems measured at ages 1, 3, and 5 were statistically significant. Both levels and trends of father involvement over time were negatively related to those of child behavior problems. The findings also suggest that maternal economic status and parenting stress were the most influential predictors of children's behavior problems. Maternal depression and parenting stress were found to be significant determinants of father involvement. Policy and practice implications of its findings were discussed.

Keywords: Father involvement; Behavior problems; Unmarried parents; Latent growth modeling; Early childhood (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740918302160
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:91:y:2018:i:c:p:424-430

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2018.06.035

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().