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Title: Interactions between Unmarried Fathers and Their Children: The Role of Paternity Establishment and Child-Support Policies
Resulting in 1 citation.
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Argys, Laura M. Peters, H. Elizabeth |
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Interactions between Unmarried Fathers and Their Children: The Role of Paternity Establishment and Child-Support Policies Presented: New Orleans, LA, American Economic Association Meeting, January 2001 Cohort(s): NLSY97 Publisher: American Economic Association Keyword(s): Child Support; Childbearing; Children; Fathers and Children; Fathers, Biological; Fathers, Involvement; Fathers, Presence; Legislation; Poverty Permission to reprint the abstract has not been received from the publisher. Nonmarital childbearing has increased substantially over the last few decades, comprising almost one-third of all births in the United States in 1995 (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1997). Poverty rates for these children are high, and many rely on public assistance. Reducing nonmarital childbearing and increasing responsibility of absent fathers were important goals of the 1996 welfare-reform legislation and earlier state and federal child-support legislation. Although there is some evidence that paternity-establishment efforts increase the likelihood of child-support awards (Cynthia Miller and Irwin Garfinkel, 1999; Argys et al., 2001), until recently microdata to assess the determinants and consequences of paternity were not available. We use the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 cohort (NLSY97) to explore the determinants of paternity and the relationship between paternity and father involvement, such as child-support awards and contact between fathers and children. Our data show that paternity is associated with increases in all types of involvement. However, if the correlation is due solely to unobserved heterogeneity, then paternity policies would not have a causal effect on involvement. In this paper we model the paternity and father-involvement decisions jointly. Our results suggest that welfare, child-support, and paternity policies do alter the probability of establishing paternity, and that exogenous increases in paternity can affect father-child interactions. |
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Bibliography Citation
Argys, Laura M. and H. Elizabeth Peters. "Interactions between Unmarried Fathers and Their Children: The Role of Paternity Establishment and Child-Support Policies." Presented: New Orleans, LA, American Economic Association Meeting, January 2001. |