Race, Romance and Non-Resident Father Involvement Resilience: Factors Hiding in Plain Sight

Ronald B. Mincy, Columbia University
Hillard Pouncy, Princeton University
Afshin Zilanawala, University College London

As researchers give more attention to the rise in non-marital births to visiting parent unions, there is a similar interest in father involvement after a visiting parent union breaks up. Previous research has only observed father involvement after the end of romantic involvement among non-residential couples. The current analysis uses all four follow up waves of the Fragile Families Study to investigate non-resident father involvement and applies the Package Deal and the Baby Father Hypotheses in explaining the trajectories of visitation. We observe visitation trajectories before and after visiting parent unions have ended their romantic involvement. We find high levels of visitation among romantically involved couples on measures of visitation since the last wave and number of days of visitation last month. Results indicate higher initial visitation levels for many minority fathers after their visiting parent unions have dissolved. There is no association between romantic involvement and sleepover visits.