Fathers' Involvement and Fathers' Well-being over Children's First Five Years

Marcia Carlson and Kimberly Turner
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Marcia Carlson: University of Wisconsin
Kimberly Turner: University of Wisconsin

No 1257, Working Papers from Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing.

Abstract: Despite the growing scholarly attention to fathers' roles in family life, the consequences of fathers' involvement with children for men's well-being have been little explored. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N=3,880), we evaluate how fathers' involvement (time, engagement and responsibility) is linked to fathers' well-being with respect to health and mental health, social integration, and economic outcomes. We evaluate resident and non-resident fathers separately, using data from three survey waves about 1, 3 and 5 years after a baby's birth. Our results indicate that fathers' involvement is not strongly related to paternal health and mental health, but greater involvement is linked with better relationship quality with the child's biological mother for both resident and nonresident fathers. With respect to economic outcomes, there is modest evidence that greater involvement is linked to lower earnings for resident fathers and to higher earnings for non-resident fathers.

Keywords: Father involvement; fragile families; longitudinal data; well-being (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I00 I32 J12 J13 J16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-09
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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