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Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
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PARENTS' FAIR SHARE

The Parents' Fair Share is a pilot program, authorized by the Family Support Act of 1988, with the goal of increasing the ability of noncustodial parents of children on AFDC to pay child support and of increasing child support collections. The Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation (MDRC) developed the model for Parents' Fair Share through focus group interviews with low-income, noncustodial fathers and with poor mothers, in addition to interviews with professionals, such as family court judges, employment services providers, and researchers. Based on the MDRC research, four key components for the Parents' Fair Share program were identified: (1) occupational training and job search and placement services, emphasizing on-the-job training rather than classroom training; (2) enhanced child support enforcement; (3) mediation services to help mothers and fathers overcome disagreements that interfere with child support compliance; and (4) peer support and parenting instruction.

Nine sites—Mobile, Alabama; Jacksonville, Florida; Springfield, Massachusetts; Grand Rapids, Michigan; suburban Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota; Kansas City, Missouri; Trenton, New Jersey; Montgomery and Butler counties, Ohio; and Memphis, Tennessee—were selected to pilot test the Parents' Fair Share model during 1992 and 1993. While each of the nine sites was given a great deal of flexibility in setting up services, they all incorporated the four key components of the model. In addition to the key components, sites were encouraged to recruit noncustodial fathers who had not yet established paternity, as well as those who were not complying with existing child support orders. Sites were also encouraged to establish links between the various agencies to be involved, such as child support, judicial, job training, and welfare. Funding for Parents' Fair Share came from a consortium of federal and state agencies and private foundations.

Evaluation of the first two years of the program has been encouraging (Bloom and Sherwood, 1994). About two-thirds of participants referred to the program actually participated in an employment and training or peer support activity. Most of the fathers who did not participate either found work on their own or were referred back to the courts. Prior to referral, more than 90 percent of these noncustodial fathers had not been engaged in employment or training activities. Parents ' Fair Share also helped change the attitudes of many of these men through peer support activities, increasing their desire to be involved with and support their children. MDRC is planning a second phase of the program to examine the longer term effects on participants.

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

purported father was considered to be too young (under 18 in some states; under 16 in some states; on a case-by-case basis in some states); only 11 states offer programs for teenage fathers through the CSE offices, mostly educational programs about the rights and responsibilities of fatherhood. A few state CSE offices work directly with teenage fathers. In Tennessee, for example, the Responsible Teen Parent Program refers teenage parents in need of employment to Job Training Partnership Act opportunities; however, success is reported to be minimal (Pirog-Good, 1992).

Programs to Increase Involvement

A number of programs aimed at encouraging the involvement of young fathers with their children have been developed in recent years, several of which were discussed at the workshop. Some of these programs are aimed primarily at improving the educational, parenting, and job skills of young fathers to allow them to better support and interact with their children. Many participants expressed the opinion that young fathers want to take a more active part in their children' s lives. One participant indicated that evaluations of demonstration projects by Public/Private Ventures and Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation show that “while lots of these young men walk through the door looking for jobs, the thing that keeps them there is the potential to link with their families.” Some programs try to capitalize on the desire for involvement, dealing with individual responsibility and self-improvement rather than job training. The following programs were discussed at the workshop. They are included as examples of the types of programs being tried around the country; none has been subjected to vigorous evaluation.

The Teen Alternative Parenting Program

Because most teenage fathers are still in school or in low-paying jobs, it may be difficult for them to provide financial support. Some CSE programs are experimenting with in-kind contributions to offset child support. The CSE unit of Marion County, Indiana, set up one such program in 1986, the Teen Alternative Parenting Program (TAPP). TAPP offered young fathers the chance to earn credits against their child support obligations by engaging in regular visitation, parenting classes, schooling, and job training. It was hoped that this program would encourage young fathers to make child support payments in the future by strengthening the bond with their children and enhancing their job preparedness.

Evaluation of the first 2 years of the program were somewhat discouraging. Data were collected for the 63 fathers offered the TAPP option and for a matched comparison group of 63 nonparticipants. Only one-half of

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

the young men who were offered the option of participating in TAPP did so (Pirog-Good, 1993); the most common way of earning credit was visitation. The percentage of child support paid by TAPP participants (including their in-kind credits) and by the control group was nearly the same. Pirog-Good concluded that it was too early to determine if TAPP will result any long-range improvements in compliance. The program continues with slight modifications under the name “On Track. ”

National Institute for Responsible Fatherhood and Family Development

In 1982, workshop participant Charles Ballard of the National Institute for Responsible Fatherhood in Cleveland, Ohio, established the Teen Father Program to reach out to young men in inner-city neighborhoods. Using what he described as a nontraditional outreach and counseling approach, which has some similarities to cognitive therapy and to visualization techniques, the program seeks to change the way these young men think about themselves and their environment, to help them “recreate their dreams.” Young fathers are recruited in the places they gather—on the basketball courts, on buses, in clinics, in juvenile court. After 12 years, 85 percent of the participants now are referred by other young men. Services are brought to the homes of the young fathers rather than making them come to the potentially alienating environment of a clinic or office building. The staff, who are called sages, try in some measure to recreate the roles of “old heads” (see above) and to act as role models for the young men.

A survey of 78 young men who had participated in the program between 1984 and 1992 (Nixon and King, 1993) found a number of positive outcomes. Before entering the program, 74 percent of the young men were unemployed; at the time of evaluation, 62 percent were employed full-time and 12 percent were employed part-time, in spite of no direct job training or job search component in the program. Only 14 percent of the young fathers had completed high school upon entering the program; by the time they completed the program, 39 percent had finished high school and at follow-up 70 percent had their high school diploma or General Equivalency Diploma. The program also had positive effects on these young men's relationships with their child and the child's mother. By the end of the program, 84 percent had legally admitted paternity, compared with less than 8 percent before the program. Although 97 percent of the young men said the program had influenced them to provide financial support for their children, no data was given on how many actually followed through; 70 percent of the former clients reported providing financial support for three or more people in 1991. Ninety-six percent of the young fathers reported improved relations with their children's mothers as a result of the program.

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
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These results seem promising in light of the fact that the population served by the National Institute for Responsible Fatherhood is at very high risk of failure on all fronts. Mr. Ballard reported that most of the young men were drug users and in gangs at the time of entry into the program.

Young Unwed Fathers Project

During 1992 and 1993, Public/Private Ventures, Inc., ran a pilot program in six cities—Cleveland, Philadelphia, St. Petersburg, Racine, Fresno, and Annapolis—offering young unwed fathers job training through programs funded by the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA), education, fatherhood development activities to encourage establishing paternity and regular payment of child support, counseling, and continued service after job placement. The goal of the project was to determine which service delivery approaches best met the needs of this difficult-to-serve population.

Evaluation of the program sites after the first year (Watson, 1992) found that recruiting the young men was difficult and resource intensive. By the end of the first year (February 1992) only one site had recruited the target of 50 participants. Agencies or staff with good credibility among the population or a reputation for generating good jobs facilitated recruitment, but developing that credibility takes time.

Similar to findings about young fathers in the National Longitudinal Survey of Labor Force Behavior of Youth (see Lerman, 1993), the 228 young fathers enrolled in the first year of the Young Unwed Fathers Project were predominantly African American, had educational deficiencies, and came from poor economic circumstances. Watson (1992) found that these young men want to support and be involved with their children. While only one-third of them had child support orders, nearly one-half of the fathers said they gave some money directly to the mother or person caring for their child. Program staff credit the focus on fatherhood for the project's initial retention rate of 81 percent.

Coordinating services and finding jobs for young unwed fathers proved difficult. Very stringent eligibility rules for JTPA programs disqualified many of the young men. Strict enforcement of child support orders caused some young men to leave training programs and take low paying jobs in order to comply. Watson (1992) concluded that the combination of JTPA and CSE regulations and the lack of coordination between public agencies and programs for young fathers and between JTPA and CSE present serious barriers to both enrollment and service delivery.

Preventing Teenage Fatherhood

Most of the workshop discussion dealt with young men after they had

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

become fathers, but some participants pointed out that people also need to be concerned with preventing teenage males from fathering children. Most efforts continue to put the onus of pregnancy prevention on young women. The National Research Council study (1987:4) on adolescent pregnancy recommended focusing more attention on young men: “Our concept of the high-risk population must include boys. Their attitudes, motivations, and behavior are as central to the problems as those of their female partners, and they must also be central to the solutions. ” Yet, it is also important to recognize that many of the fathers of children born to teenage mothers are not teenagers; programs may therefore need to be targeted not just at teenage males.

Sonenstein et al. (1992) studied factors associated with pregnancy risk among adolescent males as measured by frequency of unprotected intercourse. They found that the pregnancy risk was higher, particularly for blacks, among adolescents living in areas of high unemployment. Three other factors that were identified as associated with pregnancy risk among adolescent males were (1) having a mother who had been a teenage parent, (2) believing that premarital sex is acceptable behavior, and (3) having an employed mother. Although much remains to be learned about adolescent males' attitudes and behaviors, the factors Sonenstein et al. found to be associated with higher pregnancy risk may help in designing programs for young men.

SUMMARY

The major foci of the policy discussions at the workshop were on federal-level policy, primarily child support enforcement and the establishment of paternity. There was also discussion of state-level policy of child custody following divorce. As welfare costs increase and governments look for ways to cut spending, observers expect continuing policy emphasis on establishing paternity and child support enforcement programs. As of January 1, 1994, new court-ordered child support payments will be collected through wage withholding for the noncustodial parents of all children, whether or not they are receiving welfare benefits. There is mixed evidence on the effects of mandatory wage withholding, some suggesting that it increases child support collections and some suggesting that it acts as a disincentive to some fathers for employment. The effects of the new federal requirement remain to be seen.

Even when child support is paid, the levels of support are very low. Noncustodial fathers contribute only 19 percent, on average, of their children's household income. Furthermore, many awards are not adjusted over time. Participants discussed the benefits of more uniform standards for child support and for minimum assured child support benefits, on one hand, and for

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

more flexibility to allow nonmonetary supplements to financial support, on the other. Programs such as Parents' Fair Share that provide job training, peer group counseling, mediation, and on-going support after employment may help increase poor fathers' ability and desire to provide support for their children.

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
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Directions for Research

Thirty years' of active research has advanced understanding of the contributions that fathers make to the lives of their children and elucidated the wide variability that characterizes how fathers perceive and fulfill their roles in families. However, any effort to gain a full picture of fathering functions and their implications for children's development and for policy is hindered by several features of this research:

  • Research on fathering is fragmented, with separate strands of inquiry focusing on the effects of quality of father involvement in intact/father-present families, on the economic and psychological ramifications of father absence, and, most recently, on fathers who have primary or sole custody of their children.

  • Much of the research on fathers has suffered from the absence of a clear conceptualization of fathering roles, as distinct from the standard of mothering roles.

  • Minimal attention has been paid to the context within which fathers fulfill or fail to fulfill their responsibilities towards their families. Research, as a result, has little to offer towards the understanding of the factors within families, communities, social institutions, workplaces, and the broader economy and culture that support or undermine fathering for different groups in differing circumstances.

  • Research has failed to address several of the most compelling policy issues that bear on fathering. Indeed, beyond child support enforcement,

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

there is little consensus about the range of policy questions that bear directly on fathering and so need to be considered in terms of their effects on fathers and fathering.

These shortcomings provided a departure point for the participants ' discussion of promising directions for the next generation of research on fathers and fathering. The discussions clustered around the importance of four factors: (1) adopting a life-span perspective on fathering, (2) approaching fathering as a negotiated role, (3) considering the community context of fathering, and (4) contributing to the development of innovative programs and policies for fathers.

Fathers have been studied primarily as they affect their children 's development, with minimal attention paid to the place of fathering in men's own lives. In this context, the increasing variation in the timing of men's becoming fathers may hold significant implications for their interest and ability to be highly engaged with their children. Many men first become fathers soon after they marry and at the same time that they are launching careers. Increasingly, however, men are becoming fathers before or long after they first become husbands and workers, sometimes in the context of a second (or subsequent) marriage. Research that examines the influence of the timing of fatherhood in the trajectory of men's lives and in the context of other roles that men fulfill was suggested by the workshop participants as a very worthwhile direction for future study, as suggested by some early work along these lines.

Preliminary evidence from longitudinal research suggests that high levels of engagement in fathering benefits not only children, but also affects fathers' later roles (Snarey, 1993). For example, men at midlife who reported that they were currently involved in mentoring younger adults in their workplaces and neighborhoods were more likely than less involved men to report that they had been very involved in fathering during their own children's childhood and adolescent years. Perhaps fathering stimulates subsequent social involvement and nurturing of younger generations.

It was also suggested that assuming the role of father may offer a powerful source of motivation for some men to also assume constructive and enduring commitments to occupational and marital roles. Studies aimed at elucidating the effects of fathering on male development hold the potential to expand notions of why people should care, as a society, about men's engagement as fathers. Research in this area may also provide important clues regarding the aspects of fathering that men find most rewarding and that, in turn, may suggest important ways to promote their involvement with their children.

The intersection between men's occupational status and their fathering roles was noted frequently at the workshop, primarily in the context of the

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

negative effects of unemployment on fathering. Research examining evidence that dates back to the Great Depression has documented the profound negative impact that the absence of work has on men's interactions with their children (Elder and Caspi, 1988). Researchers have recently begun to examine how the conditions and characteristics of work affect fathering on behalf of employed fathers (Greenberger and O'Neil, 1991; O'Neil, 1991; Repetti, 1989; Repetti, 1994). Further understanding of the dimensions of work that affect fathering could provide important guidance for workplace interventions aimed at alleviating the pressures that can spill over into negative father-child interactions. One participant called specifically for research into corporate practices that contribute to “father friendly” work environments.

Fathers' roles will only be fully appreciated to the extent that their own development is examined in concert with the development of their wives and their children. The intersection of fathering and mothering was a particularly prominent topic of discussion. The amount and nature of fathering that children receive was portrayed by the workshop participants as a product of the interplay between men's and women 's roles in families. Men do not just assume the role of father; they negotiate it, either in partnership or in conflict with their children 's mothers.

Much remains to be understood about how mothers and fathers negotiate their respective roles as parents. How does the quality of the relationship between mother and father affect fathers' engagement with their children? What implicit and explicit roles are played by other family members in this process? What perceptions and experiences shape mothers' attitudes about the competence and reliability of fathers and fathers ' attitudes about their roles? The participants agreed that fathering cannot be adequately understood apart from family systems, from prevailing attitudes about gender roles, and, in effect, from mothering.

The special case of families with a disabled child was also discussed as an area of research that would benefit from approaching mothers and fathers as partners in child rearing. Research on these families has neglected fathers' roles and placed mothers at the center of concern. As a consequence, virtually nothing is known about fathers ' relationships with disabled children. How do fathers view their role in the care of a disabled child? What individual and contextual factors contribute to more or less close emotional attachments between fathers and their disabled children? What kinds of assistance from formal and informal sources would fathers find most helpful? Although some of these questions are being studied, mothers are typically the sole data source. Direct interviews with fathers may reveal major differences between a mother's perception of the father's role and the father's outlook on what he should be doing.

The discussion of the role of “old heads” in inner-city communities

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

raised a number of questions about the community context within which fathering roles are defined, transmitted, and either supported or undermined. It has long been understood that fathering is a role that is passed from one generation to the next. The mechanisms through which this intergenerational transmission occurs, however, are not well understood. The workshop discussion revealed the importance of the social organization of communities for this process of mentoring fathers and raised many questions about sources of fathering images for today's young men.

How, for example, are community norms about “good fathering” established and communicated? Children who are reared in father absent households often grow up without models of fathering, yet this aspect of fathers' absences has been neglected in the empirical emphasis on the economic and more immediate losses that children experience in these situations. It is for these children that salient community norms and non-parental male role models are likely to be particularly important. And in two-parent families, how does the degree of cooperation that parents demonstrate in child rearing affect children's subsequent ability as adults to form strong spousal ties and to function well as coparents?

More generally, the role of social context as a source of variation in how fathers view their role in the family, in how they behave, and in the nature of the contributions that they make to their families is richly deserving of study. Why do some fathers in intact families become highly engaged with their children while others spend the vast majority of their time away from their children? Why do some divorced fathers feel a continuing responsibility for their offspring, while others seem to divorce their whole family? Why do some men living in impoverished environments remain committed to and involved with their families, while others succumb to the pressures that push men away from their families? What are the implications of answers to these questions for the construction of policies that will encourage rather than hinder fathers' sustained involvement with their children?

The lack of knowledge about programs that foster fathers' sustained and active involvement with their children was noted throughout the workshop. A central tension concerned the benefits of approaches that emphasize men's role as workers and focus on employment opportunities, compared with those that emphasize more motivational dimensions of fathering and focus on fostering men's confidence and commitment to the fathering role. One participant suggested that men be asked directly about the factors that have helped or hindered their involvement with their children and that this information be used to design “father-driven” interventions.

The need for much more systematic evaluation research on policies pertaining to divorce, child support, and custodial arrangements was also discussed. What practices, for example, promote the effective establish-

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

ment of paternity for different groups? Sonenstein's work indicates the importance of offering fathers the opportunity to acknowledge paternity in the context of swift enforcement for noncompliance (Sonenstein et al., 1993), yet the direction of policy is towards mandatory mechanisms. Particularly needed is research that moves beyond documenting low rates of establishing and enforcing child support orders and aims to elucidate the economic and noneconomic deterrents to an effective child support policy. The workshop participants were also interested in seeing more research on the use of mediation and its ramifications for postdivorce relations among mothers, fathers, and their children. A general observation concerned the focus of public policy on men's economic contributions to their families, rather than assessments of fathers' behavior towards their children in evaluations of policies governing paternity establishment, custodial arrangements, and child support enforcement.

In sum, multiple avenues for research on fatherhood were suggested by the workshop participants, ranging from foundational research on the influence of fathering on fathers to evaluation research aimed at explaining effective approaches to supporting fathers' engagement with their children. The common theme of the discussion was that it is only when fathers are studied in the context of their own development and the context of their families, communities, and jobs that a full appreciation of the factors that influence their self-perceptions, behaviors, and level of engagement as fathers can be gained.

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

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Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
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×

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×

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APPENDIX

Workshop Agenda

America's Fathers: Abiding and Emerging Roles, in Family and Econmic Support Policies

National Academy of Sciences

2101 Constitution Avenue, NW

Washington, DC

September 26-28, 1993

September 26

5:30-6:00p

Reception

6:00-7:00p

Dinner

7:00-7:15p

Welcome, Introductions, Opening Remarks

Donald Wertlieb

7:15-7:45p

Fathers' Engagement in Family and Economic Support Programs: Opportunities and Challenges

Thomas Downey

7:45-8:00p

Question and Answer Session

8:00-8:30p

Historical Changes in the Role of Fathers in the U.S.

Tamara Hareven

8:30-9:00p

Question and Answer Session / Discussion

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

September 27

8:15-9:00a

Continental Breakfast

9:00-9:15a

Introductory Remarks

9:15-9:45a

The Diversity of Fathers' Roles Throughout the Life Course: Implications for Public Policy

William Marsiglio

9:45-10:15a

Impact of Different Cultural Attitudes on the Role of Fathers

Richard Majors

10:15-10:45a

Psychological Aspects of Fatherhood

Ross Parke

10:45-11:00a

Break

11:15a-noon

Discussion

noon-1:30p

Lunch

1:30-3:00p

Fathers' Roles in Intervention Programs for Children at Special Risk: Disabled, Chronically Ill, and Children Living in Poverty

Panel presentations (60 min) followed by discussion (30 min)

James Gallagher, Martha Krauss, Ann Turnbull

3:00-3:15p

Break

3:15-4:45p

Fathers' Roles in Economic Support Programs: Divorce, Child Support, and Welfare Reform Panel presentations (60 min) followed by discussion (30 min)

Irwin Garfinkel, Ron Haskins, Judith Seltzer

4:45-5:00p

Wrap-up discussion

6:00-7:30p

Dinner

7:30-9:00p

Panel—Fathers' Rights

Robert Mnookin, Martha Fineman, Robert Levy

 

Discussion

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
×

September 28

8:15-9:00a

Continental Breakfast

9:00-10:30a

Fathers' Roles in Teenage Parenting Programs Panel presentations (60 min) followed by discussion (30 min)

Elijah Anderson, Charles Ballard, Darryl Ward

10:30a-noon

Synthesis discussion: What do we know about factors that facilitate vs. hinder fathers' involvement in family and economic support programs? How is our answer to this question informed/shaped by historical, cultural, psychological, and lifespan perspectives? Are there mismatches between this knowledge base and assumptions presently embedded in public policies? Where is more research needed?

Noon-1:30p

Lunch

1:30p

Adjourn

Suggested Citation:"PUBLIC POLICY." National Research Council. 1994. America's Fathers and Public Policy: Report of a Workshop. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/9193.
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