Relationships between Fathers and Children Who Live Apart: The Father's Role after Separation

Untraditional caring arrangements among parents living apart

“…The children themselves may also prefer to spend more time with their father when the mother has settled with a new partner. However, studies investigating the amount of contact between non-resident fathers and children suggest that the mother's re-partnering is linked to less contact between biological fathers and children (Seltzer 1991;Seltzer and Bianchi 1988;Juby, Billette, Laplante and Bourdais 2007). The father may feel that he is less needed when the child has a stepfather, or that his own role is less clear, but other mechanisms may also be at play.…”

Patterns of Contact and Involvement Between Adolescents and Their Non-Resident Fathers

“…The results suggest the transfer of financial capital (Castillo, 2010) to offspring not only in terms of paying court-ordered maintenance but also in terms of alleviating some of the economic disadvantages faced by single mothers and a commitment by fathers to the educational future of their children. The literature consistently shows a positive association between the payment of child support and contact (Seltzer, 2000;Stewart, 2003). The inability to establish a causal order between the payment of maintenance and contact is endemic to most research that examines contact and the payment of child support (Seltzer, 2000).…”

“…The literature consistently shows a positive association between the payment of child support and contact (Seltzer, 2000;Stewart, 2003). The inability to establish a causal order between the payment of maintenance and contact is endemic to most research that examines contact and the payment of child support (Seltzer, 2000). A study by Carlson, McLanahan and BrooksGunn (2008) indicates a causal direction running from financial contributions to positive parental relationships and father involvement during adolescence in particular, with financial contributions of fathers playing a particularly important role to maintain a sense of closeness to a non-resident father (Nepomnyaschy, 2007).…”

Teenage delinquency: the role of child support payments and father's visitation

“…Column 1 of Table 2 reports These results are particularly interesting because they differ from previous studies. McLanahan , Seltzer, Hanson and Thomson (1994), Seltzer (1991) and Furstenberg, Morgan and Allison (1987) find that child support payment and visitation are positively correlated. In contrast, our results, reported in Table 2, show no pattern across child support payment and visitation.…”

“…The nonresidential status of non-custodial fathers means that all interactions are in the form of visitation that by its nature is limited in duration and bounded in terms of potential influence. There is growing empirical evidence suggesting a positive correlation between child support payment and visitation by the non-custodial father (examples include, McLanahan, Seltzer, Hanson and Thomson 1994;Seltzer 1991;Furstenberg, Morgan and Allison 1987). In other words, it is generally the case that fathers who pay child support have more contact with their children.…”