Father Involvement Across Early and Middle Childhood: Comparing Relationship Churning to Stable Relationship Statuses

• In Event: 116 - Section on Children and Youth Paper Session. Family and Relationship Stability and Its Effects on Children & Youth

Abstract

In this paper, we extend prior research on the association between relationship transitions and father involvement by considering an understudied form of relationship transitions—relationship churning, defined as being in an on-again/off-again relationship with the same partner. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine how father involvement among those in churning relationships compares to father involvement among those in three other relationship types: stably together relationships, stably broken up relationships, and repartnered relationships. We find that confirm the findings of previous research that repartnering is associated with the greatest declines in father involvement over time; however, we show that it seems to be the new partner as opposed to the tumult over a breakup and (re)unification that is most strongly implicated in the declines in father involvement.

Authors

• Kristin Turney, University of California, Irvine

• Sarah Halpern-Meekin, University of Wisconsin - Madison