Becoming a Single Parent

Abstract

Using a longitudinal sample of 4,010 mothers and fathers from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, we examine factors that predict whether children are living with both parents, only their mother, or only their father when the child is 3 years old. We considered parental characteristics and resources and couple\family-level characteristics and found that although many factors increased the odds of parents living together—including the financial resources of each parent, having a supportive relationship, and having a disability-free child—even more factors disproportionately increased the likelihood of either single fatherhood or single motherhood, including parents’ multiple-partner fertility and depression, mother’s drug use, and mother’s greater alcohol use. Our findings suggest that although most children living with a single parent live with their mothers, they are more likely to do so if their fathers exhibit problem behaviors, and more likely to live with their father if their mothers do so.

Keywords

single parents gender and family household living arrangements divorce/separation family processes

Introduction

Despite the rise in single parenthood, single fathers remain perhaps the least understood group of parents (Herrerias, 1995). In 2010, there were about 1.8 million single fathers in the United States, and about 15% of single parents were men (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011a). Although a substantial body of research documents the formation of single-mother families (see Garfinkel & McLanahan, 1986; Gibson-Davis, 2011; Hertz, 2006; Lichter, Qian, & Mellott, 2006, for examples), little attention has focused on factors associated with the formation of single-father families or examined how the factors leading to single fatherhood compare with those leading to single motherhood (for an exception, see Eggebeen, Snyder, & Manning, 1996).

Most studies on single fathers are exploratory in nature, with homogeneous samples, so their findings must be treated with caution (Guttman, 1989). Furthermore, many studies have focused only on divorced or separated fathers with custody of older children (Hilton, Desrochers, & Devall, 2001) and rarely include measures of both parents’ characteristics.

Our analysis has two goals: (a) to examine the characteristics of both fathers and mothers that predict the formation of a single-parent family and (b) to distinguish those characteristics that predict whether the family is headed by a father or a mother. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a longitudinal survey that follows recent parents, with complementary information on both the mother and father, and their child. Hence, it allows for an examination of the factors related to the formation of single-father versus single-mother families.

Background

Given that the early growth of single-parent families was overwhelmingly made up of single mothers, nearly all research has focused on women. According to 2010 Census data, single-mother families increased from 3 million in 1970 to nearly 10 million in 2010. During the same period, single-father families grew from 393,000 to about 2 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011b). More recently, the rate of growth in single father families has surpassed that of single mother families, which may even have plateaued (Hofferth, Pleck, Goldscheider, Curtin, & Hrapczynski, 2012).

The increase in single-father families has occurred in a context of two powerful trends: (a) increasing relationship instability, resulting in more single-parent families in general; and (b) growing gender equality in the workplace (England, 2008) and in the home (Sayer, Bianchi, & Robinson, 2004). The introduction of no-fault divorce laws and gender-neutral custody criteria (Elrod & Dale, 2008; Kelly, 1994, 2006; Meyer & Garasky, 1993), increased female labor force participation (Boushey, 2008; Goldin, 1990), more single men adopting children (Weinraub, Horvath, Gringlas, & Bornstein, 2002), and greater acceptability (Goldscheider & Kaufman, 2006; Pagnini & Rindfuss, 1993) have all contributed to the growth in single fathering. Particularly in cases in which mothers have physically limiting conditions or behavioral problems (e.g., drug use), these egalitarian trends may make fathers more willing to provide for their children.

To model the likelihood of single parenthood, and if so, whether the family has a single mother or a single father, we adopt a microstructural perspective (Risman, 1986, 1987), which posits that behaviors are shaped by the social contexts in which people live and the resources they have to achieve their goals. This allows us to consider conditions such as substance abuse, poor mental health, and low socioeconomic status, which may reduce parents’ internal motivation and ability to provide for their children. This perspective also allows us to consider the structural conditions that result in one parent or the other assuming custody of children. Economic constraints and opportunities, social networks and support, and mother−father relationships may shape one outcome or the other.

The formation of single-mother or single-father families may happen as a result of the preferences, choices, and/or constraints operating on both parents. We identify three sets of factors: (a) parental characteristics and attitudes, (b) parental resources, and (c) couple/family-level characteristics (including characteristics of the child).

Parental Characteristics and Attitudes

Measures of the characteristics, experiences, and attitudes of mothers who relinquish custody are generally derived from small studies focused on divorced non-custodial mothers of older children (Greif & Pabst, 1988; Herrerias, 1995; Hilton et al., 2001). Many assume that when fathers relinquish custody, they are simply following the expected path (Gersick, 1979; Goldscheider & Kaufman, 2006; Hanson, Bronstein, & Cowan, 1988). Nevertheless, the same characteristics that contribute to mothers’ relinquishing custody may also apply to fathers. We focus specifically on parents’ psychological well-being (depression), substance abuse (illegal drugs and alcohol), parenting stress, multiple partner fertility, and feelings of readiness to be a parent (thoughts of abortion) as characteristics and attitudes that may contribute to parents’ relinquishing custody of their children.

Emotional problems are among the most common reasons for mothers giving up custody. Other research involving fathers has reinforced this notion, showing that single custodial fathers commonly have ex-partners with emotional or mental health problems (Greif & DeMaris, 1990), or a lack of interest in parenting (Hamer & Marchioro, 2002). Qualitative work on African American single fathers suggests that while mothers’ drug use may not be the primary reason fathers seek custody, it is a motivating factor for many fathers (Coles, 2002). Furthermore, noncustodial parents are more likely than custodial parents to have experienced a drug overdose or prior drug and alcohol abuse treatment (Lewis & Petry, 2005).

In addition, the demands of parenthood are often stressful (Bronte-Tinkew, Horowitz, & Carrano, 2010). One small-scale qualitative study of 24 low-income African American single custodial fathers found that more than half of the fathers in the study assumed custody because the mother of the child expressed being overwhelmed and unhappy in her role as a parent (Coles, 2002). Each new child adds new role demands, leading to role overload.

Having children with multiple partners may contribute to difficulties enacting family roles, as parents have to negotiate them with multiple (former) partners and across different households. Prior research suggests that having children with more than one partner reduces the emotional and financial resources a parent is able to provide to each family member (Bronte-Tinkew, Horowitz, & Scott, 2009; Manning & Smock, 1999, 2000; Mincy, 2001). Parents with children from previous partners may find it more difficult to distribute their social and economic resources evenly between their children and their inability to care for all their children may prompt the other parent to seek custody of the child.

Readiness for parenthood may affect the quantity and quality of parents’ involvement in a child’s later life (Bronte-Tinkew, Moore, Matthews, & Carrano, 2007; Bronte-Tinkew, Ryan, Carrano, & Moore, 2007; Waller & Bitler, 2008). Men typically feel that they have less control over contraception and birth planning than women do (Bachrach & Sonenstein, 1998), reducing their sense of involvement with the developing child. It is also possible that mother and father pregnancy intentions work in conjunction with each other to shape the likelihood of relinquishing custody and becoming a single parent.

As parents’ problem behaviors may result in their inability to successfully fulfill their role as parents, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 1: Parents who report higher levels of depressive symptoms and substance use, have experienced parenting stress or multiple partner fertility, or have thought about obtaining an abortion will have an increased likelihood of separating, and if so, of relinquishing custody to the child’s other parent.

Parental Resources

Parenthood is much more difficult in the absence of adequate financial and social resources. Mothers’ inability to provide financial security is a frequently reported reason that fathers obtain custody of their children (Bemiller, 2008; Herrerias, 1995). Greater economic resources should help fathers enact the single parent role (Grall, 2009; Hilton et al., 2001). Noncustodial mothers are more likely to be poor than noncustodial fathers (Edin & Kefalas, 2005; Kramer & McCulloch, 2009; Sousa & Sorensen, 2006).

Greater education provides resources that might both keep a couple together and increase the likelihood of becoming the single parent instead of the absent parent in the event of a separation. While single fathers are less educated than married fathers, they are more highly educated than single mothers (Meyer & Garasky, 1993; Zhan & Pandey, 2004), which may help fathers succeed as single parents.

Social resources are also important supports for parents. We examine instrumental support (Aycan & Eskin, 2005; Cairney, Boyle, Offord, & Racine, 2003), parents’ histories of involved parenting in their own families of origin (Fagan, Palkovitz, Roy, & Farrie, 2009), religious participation (Brown, Orbuch, & Bauermeister, 2008), and men’s own commitment to fathering (Coles, 2002). On the basis of the microstructural theory and available evidence related to parents’ individual resources, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 2: Parents with more economic and social resources will be more likely to stay together, but if they parent separately, parents with the greatest resources will be more likely to have custody.

Couple/Family-Level Characteristics

Family-level factors should influence parents’ likelihood of remaining together or of relinquishing custody of their children if the relationship dissolves. Fathers who are coresident at the child’s birth should be more likely to be living with the child 3 years later (Lichter et al., 2006; Osborne, 2005) and may be more committed to their children than those that were not, so that if there is a separation, they will be more likely to have custody 3 years later. Relationship quality prior to separation may also have an important influence on the likelihood of becoming a single parent—especially for unmarried parents (Aronson, 2007; Greif & DeMaris, 1990).

Children’s characteristics may also affect the decision to be a single parent. Fathers are more likely to obtain custody of male children (Coles, 2002; Dahl & Moretti, 2008; Greif & DeMaris, 1990; Meyer & Garasky, 1993). The disability status of the child may be an important factor in the decision to become a single custodial parent. Child disability is a major contributor to union dissolution (Hogan & Goldscheider, 2012) and a child’s disability may discourage fathers from obtaining primary custody (Cohen & Petrescu-Prahova, 2006).

In this category, we consider two additional demographic characteristics that influence family configurations: race/ethnicity (Coles, 2009; Gibson-Davis, Edin, & McLanahan, 2005) and the age of both parents, with older individuals less likely to separate (Kreider & Elliot, 2009), whereas younger fatherhood is correlated with lower involvement in the child’s life and with being a nonresident father (Lerman & Ooms, 1993).

Hence, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 3: A stronger mother–father relationship, not having a disabled child, and having a childhood history of involved fathering will be associated with parents’ staying together, and with father custody if parents do not stay together; parents who are older will be more likely to be single custodial parents.

Data, Measures, and Method

We used data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (Fragile Families). This is a national survey of the parents of newborn children that provides information over time on the characteristics and relationships of the infants’ fathers and mothers, as well as of the developing child. Baseline survey data were collected between 1998 and 2000 for the families of 4,898 newborn children in 20 cities in the United States (McLanahan et al., 2001). The study includes 1,186 married couples and 3,712 unmarried couples (most of whom were coresident at the birth of their children). Further interviews were completed when the children were 1, 3, 5, and 9 years old. These data are representative of births in U.S. cities with populations more than 200,000.

Response rate analyses indicates that the Fragile Families data are most representative of cohabiting and married fathers (90% response rate) and least representative of fathers who were less romantically involved with the child’s mother at the birth of the child (38% response rate). However, these men may be unusually committed to the child, despite the tenuous nature of the mother–father relationship. We test to see if the factors predicting custody at 36 months are conditioned by relationship status at birth. At the 1-year follow-up, 91% of married mothers, 90% of unmarried mothers, 82% of married fathers and 70% of unmarried fathers who had a completed baseline interview were interviewed (Fragile Families, 2006).

Sample for Analysis

We used data from the baseline, 12-month, and 36-month waves of the Fragile Families study. We excluded from the original sample 888 families in which the mother and/or father were no longer participating by the 36-month survey, resulting in a final analytic sample of 4,010 cases. This number is consistent with reported rates of attrition from the study (Fragile Families, 2006).

Excluded fathers differed only slightly from fathers in the final analytic sample, with lower income (31,000 vs. 37,000), less education (22% vs. 32% had some college), less support for parenting, and less positive attitudes about fathering than fathers that were included. A slightly lower percentage was married or cohabiting at baseline (65% vs. 68%), fewer were White (16% vs. 22%), and more were Hispanic (30% vs. 24%). There were a few differences in mother characteristics for those families excluded from the sample compared with those who were included in the analytic sample: a greater percentage of mothers who were excluded reported drug (9% vs. 5%) and alcohol use (19% vs. 13%) and higher rates of multiple partner fertility (39% vs. 34%).

Measures

Dependent Variable

Family structure

This measure captured whether, at the time of the 36-month survey, children were living in (a) a two-parent family, (b) a single-mother family, or (c) a single-father family. Single parents were defined as those who were not living with the other parent, according to both parents, but did live most of the time with the child (at least 4 nights a week).

Independent Variables

Most of our independent variables are derived from the baseline interview but some were not available until the 12-month survey. (These are noted in Table 1, together with their sample means.) Many were identical for each parent, and where possible, they were used that way. However, when they were highly correlated, such as age, educational level, parenting stress, and alcohol use, we used difference measures; and for race, which was extremely highly correlated, we just used one measure. We also created some difference measures for theoretical reasons (e.g., thoughts of abortion, religious service attendance).

Table 1.

Sample Characteristics by Parental Structure at 36 Months, Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Survey.

	Full sample		Two-parent families	Single mothers (absent fathers)	Single fathers (absent mothers)
Parental structure (36 months)
Two-parent family (%)	56.6		100	—	—
Single mother (absent father) (%)	39.2		—	100	—
Single father (absent mother) (%)	4.2		—	—	100
Parental characteristics and attitudes
Symptoms of depression (range = 0-7; 12 months)
Mother’s depressive symptoms	0.7	a, b	0.6	0.9	1.1
Father’s depressive symptoms	0.5	a, c	0.3	0.8	0.5
Substance use (Baseline) (%)
Mother’s drug use in the past 3 months (Baseline)	4.7	a, b, c	3.2	6.2	11.2
Father’s drug use in the past 3 months (Baseline)	11	a	9.5	12.6	14.7
Mother’s alcohol use in the past 3 months (Baseline)	0.5	b	0.4	0.6	0.6
Mother–father differences in alcohol use (continuous)	1.2	c	1.2	1.2	1
Parenting stress (range = 0-12; 12-month)
Mother’s parenting stress	4.7	a, b	4.5	5.1	5
Mother–father differences in parenting stress	0.5	a, b	0.3	0.7	0.8
Mother reports of MPF at baseline (%)
Mother’s MPF	34.2	a, b	28	41.7	49.4
Father’s MPF	34.6	a, b, c	26.7	50.1	38.8
Parental differences in thoughts of abortion (%)
(Neither father nor mother thought of abortion)	67.3	a, b	73.2	49.4	57.6
Only father thought of abortion	7.6		6.3	11.2	10.1
Only mother thought of abortion	17.3	a, b	14.4	26.4	20.9
Both father and mother thought of abortion	7.9	a	6.1	13.1	11.5
Parental resources
Financial situation
Mother received public assistance (e.g., TANF, WIC) at baseline (%)	35.1	a, b	26.9	45.1	52.4
Father income (in thousands; Baseline)	36.6	a, b	42.6	28.8	28.5
Father education some college or more (%)	32	a, b	41.2	19.7	24.1
Parental differences in education (%)
(Education level the same)	75.7		0.8	0.8	0.7
Father is more educated than mother	9.7	a, c	10.6	7.9	13.5
Father is less educated than mother	14.7		13.9	15.6	16.5
Grandfather’s involvement (range 0-2)
Mother’s father’s involvement	1.1	a, b, c	1.2	1.1	0.9
Father’s father’s involvement	1.1	a, b	1.2	1	1
Support for parenting (range = 0-3; 12 months)	1.3	a	1.4	1.3	1.3
Parental differences in religiosity (%)
(Only mother attends religious services at least weekly)	13.7	a, c	11.9	16.7	10
Only father attends religious services at least weekly	6.2	a	6.9	5.2	7.1
Both parents attend religious services at least weekly	9	a, b	12.9	3.9	4.7
Neither parent attends religious services at least weekly	71	a, b	68.4	74.2	78.2
Father’s attitudes about fathering (range = 0-9; Baseline)	8.2	a,c	8.3	8	8.2
Couple/family-level characteristics
Married or cohabiting at baseline (%)	68	a, b, c	86.2	42.9	57.7
Relationship supportiveness (range = 0-10) at baseline	8.4	a, b	8.7	8.1	8.2
Child gender male (%)	52.5		52.2	52.7	55.9
Child has a disability (12 months)	2.3	a, b	1.5	3.2	4.7
Father’s age at birth at baseline	27.9	a, b	29.1	26.5	26.8
Parental age difference (%)
(Father 2 years older or more)	56.9	a, c	54.1	61.5	51.7
Parents within a year of each other	32.3	a, c	33.8	29.4	38.8
Father 2 years younger or more	10.8	a	12.1	9	9.4
Race at baseline (%)
(White)	22.9	a, b	28.1	15.9	17.1
Hispanic	24.1	a, b	29.8	16.8	16.5
Black	49.2	a, b	37.8	64.3	62.4
Other	3.8	a	4.3	3.1	4.1
n	4,010		2,268	1,572	170

Note. MPF = multiple partner fertility; TANF = temporary assistance for needy families; WIF = women, infants and children.

Two-parent families are significantly different from single mothers (absent fathers), p < .05.

Two-parent families are significantly different from single fathers (absent mothers), p < .05.

Single mothers are significantly different from single fathers, p < .05.

Parental Characteristics and Attitudes

The Fragile Families data set is unique in providing nearly identical measures for both mothers and fathers. Self-reported depressive symptoms were measured by each parent using the Composite International Diagnostic Interview–Short Form (Kessler, Andrews, Mroczek, Utsun, & Wittchen, 1998). This measure was created from seven items that indicate the way the respondent reported feeling or behaving over a 2-week period during the past year. Items include losing interest, feeling tired, a change in weight, trouble sleeping, trouble concentrating, feeling worthless and thinking about death (α = .98).

Drug use in the 3 months prior to the focal child’s birth was reported by both mothers and fathers. Their reports of alcohol use ranged from never to nearly every day (0-4).

Individual scales of mother and father parenting stress were created from items adapted from the Aggravation/Stress in Parenting Scale (Abidin, 1995). The four-item index (range = 0-12; α = .62) included (a) being a parent is harder than I thought, (b) I feel trapped by responsibilities as a parent, (c) taking care of a child is more work than pleasure, and (d) I feel tired, worn out, or exhausted from raising a family.

Multiple partner fertility was a mother-reported dichotomous measure of whether the mother or father had children with other partners. Thoughts of abortion indicate the intendedness of the pregnancy (Waller & Bitler, 2008). We coded these as follows: only the father, only the mother, and both thought about abortion, compared with neither parent thought about abortion.

Parenting Resources

In addition to income and education, we include measures of social capital and of attitudes supportive of engaged parenthood. We chose different income measures, given the endogeneity of couple incomes (Karoly & Burtless, 1995), and because women’s earnings are likely to be lower preceding a birth. For mothers, we used her receipt of public assistance at baseline; for fathers, we used a measure of income in the previous year, collected at baseline. We constructed a difference measure for education, dichotomizing at (a) high school or less and (b) at least some college, and then created three categories: the father was less educated than the mother, the father was more educated than the mother, and the father and mother had similar levels of educational attainment (the reference group). We averaged reports of social support for each parent, based on whether they could count on somebody to provide them with (a) financial help, (b) a place to live, or (c) emergency childcare if they needed it in the next year (α =.75).

Reports of religious attendance were dichotomized into attending religious services weekly versus less often, which we combined for mothers and fathers based on the following categories: only father attends services weekly, both parents attend services weekly, neither parent attends services weekly, and only mother attends services weekly.

Attitudes toward fathering were indicated with a three-item index to which nearly all fathers gave maximum answers (mean = 8.2 out of 9; α = 1.00) to the following: (a) being a father and raising children is one of the most fulfilling experiences a man can have, (b) I want people to know that I have a new child; and (c) not being a part of my child’s life would be one of the worst things that could happen to me.

Couple/Family-Level Characteristics

Relationship status was a dichotomous measure of whether the mother and father were living together (cohabiting or married) at baseline. Relationship support was a five-item index (α = .62) measuring fathers’ reports about whether the mother (a) is fair and willing to compromise, (b) expresses love or affection for the father, (c) encourages or helps him do things, (d) is physically abusive, and (d) is verbally abusive (the last two reverse scored). Two measures focused on the characteristics of the child, child gender and physical disability (yes/no). In this category we also included race/ethnicity and age.

Analytic Strategy

First, we present descriptive statistics for our measures, comparing the distributions among parents in two-parent families, single-mother families, and single-father families. Second, we used logistic regression to compare those parenting together with those parenting separately after 36 months. Third, we used multinomial logistic regression to compare the factors that predicted the likelihood children live in each of the three residence-custody status categories: comparing single fathers and single mothers with two-parent families, after 36 months. Finally, we tested for differences between whether the child lived with a single mother or a single father. We ran the same models separately by relationship status at the focal child’s birth, but found no substantively interesting differences.

We employed Missing Values Analysis procedures in SPSS to impute missing cases for all independent variables using an expectation maximization (EM) algorithm (Allison, 2001) to obtain complete cases for all respondents. Most measures had less than 20% missing, with the exception of fathers’ depressive symptoms (26%), parental differences in parenting stress (37%), father income (37%), support for parenting (27%), and relationship supportiveness (23%).

Results

Family Type at 36 Months

A majority of parents (57%) were cohabiting or married 36 months after the child’s birth (Table 1), although this is considerably less than the 68% who were cohabiting or married at baseline. The next most frequent arrangement consisted of single mothers/absent father (39.2%); little more than a tenth as many were single fathers/absent mothers (4.2%).

Many of the measures included in the analysis differ significantly by family type (Table 1). Consistent with previous research, parents in two-parent families show more positive parental characteristics and attitudes, resources, and couple/family-level characteristics. Similarly, single fathers show more positive characteristics than absent fathers.

Multivariate Analyses

We present multivariate analyses in Table 2. Model 1 (column 1) examines whether the focal child lived with a single parent or with both parents after 36 months. Model 2 (columns 2 and 3) distinguishes the effects on becoming a single father versus a father in a two-parent family, and a single mother versus a mother in a two-parent family. Model 3 tests for differences between the two single-parent types (column 4). In Model 3, we present only the significance level of the difference between factors predicting being a single father compared with being an absent father.

Table 2.

Paternal and Maternal Characteristics Linked with Single Fatherhood Versus Single Motherhood.

	Model 1		Model 2				Model 3
	Single versus 2-parent		Single father/absent mother versus 2-parent		Single mother/absent father versus 2-parent		Single father versus single mother
	OR	p	RRR	p	RRR	p	p
Parental characteristics and attitudes
Symptoms of depression (Range: 0-7; 12 months)
Mother’s depressive symptoms	1.079	**	1.141	**	1.071	**
Father’s depressive symptoms	1.152	***	1.018		1.167	***	#
Substance use (Baseline)
Mother’s drug use	0.961		1.703	*	0.869		#
Father’s drug use	0.797	+	0.92		0.781	+
Mother’s alcohol use (Range: 0-4)	1.128				1.128
Mother–father difference in alcohol use (range = −4 to 4)	0.939		1.114		0.919	*	#
Parenting stress (range = 0-12; 12 months)
Mother’s parenting stress	0.992		0.972		0.994
Mother–father differences in parenting stress	1.050	**	1.069	+	1.048	*
Mother reports of MPF at baseline
Mother’s MPF	1.229	*	1.620	**	1.185	+	+
Father’s MPF	1.629	***	1.116		1.699	***	#
Parental differences in thoughts of abortion (neither considered)
Only father thought of abortion	0.941		1.335		0.899
Only mother thought of abortion	1.206	+	1.076		1.222	+
Both father and mother thought of abortion	1.101		0.964		1.116
Parental resources
Financial situation
Mother received public assistance (Baseline)	1.202	*	1.534	*	1.166	+
Father’s income (Baseline)	0.991	***	0.988	**	0.991	***
Father education (ref. = high school or less)
Some college or more	0.819		0.733		0.83
Parental differences in education (ref.= equal)
Father more educated than mother	1.065		1.904	+	0.971		+
Father less educated than mother	0.992		1.133		0.977
Grandfather’s involvement (baseline; range 0-2)
Mother’s father’s involvement	0.976		0.789	*	1.003		#
Father’s father’s involvement	0.997		1.088		0.986
Support for parenting (range = 0-3; 12 months)	0.896		0.914		0.891
Parental differences in religiosity (Baseline; ref. = only mother attends)
Both parents attend religious services	0.871		0.736		0.832		+
Only father attends religious services	0.694	*	1.228		0.650	*
Neither parents attends religious services	0.440	***	1.389		0.418	***
Attitudes about fathering (range = 0-9; Baseline)	0.959		1.065		0.946
Couple/family-level characteristics
Married or cohabiting (ref. = unmarried/not living together)	0.234	***	0.381	***	0.222	***	# #
Relationship supportiveness (range = 0-10) at baseline	0.859	***	0.857	**	0.859	***
Child gender (Female)
Male	1.012		1.127		0.996
Child has a disability	1.726	*	2.459	*	1.635	+
Parental age
Father’s age	0.954	***	0.971	+	0.952	***
(Father 2 years older or more)
Parents within a year of each other	0.928		1.382	+	0.879		#
Father 2 years younger or more	0.679	**	0.695		0.677	**
Race (ref. = White)
Hispanic	0.677	**	0.571	*	0.696	**
Black	1.249	*	1.186		1.260	*
Other race	1.016		1.349		0.975
n	4,010		4,010		4,010

Note: OR = odds ratio; RRR = relative risk ratio; MPF = multiple partner fertility.

p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001 (relative to living in a two-parent family).

p < .10. ^#p < .05. ^{# #}p < .01. ^{# # #}p < .001 (relative to being a single mother).

Parental Characteristics and Attitudes

Mothers’ depressive symptoms predict the child’s not living in a two-parent family (Model 1, odds ratio [OR] = 1.08), but the effect is balanced (Model 2); a mother’s depression significantly increases the odds both that she will be a single mother and that the father will be a single father. Fathers’ depressive symptoms have an even stronger effect on single parenthood, and in this case, all the effect is on increasing the likelihood the child will live in a single-mother family, which is significantly greater than living with a single father (Model 3). A father’s depression leads to father absence; a mother’s depression does, as well, but also increases the likelihood she will be the absent parent.

Both parents’ substance use significantly affects single parenthood. A mother’s drug use increases the odds of being an absent mother by 70%. The results for a father’s drug use, however, are more puzzling. Greater drug use among fathers is associated with lower odds of living in a single-parent family (Model 1), and it marginally reduces the likelihood that the child lives only with his/her mother.

Mothers’ alcohol use has no effect. However, a father who uses less alcohol than the mother is significantly less likely to be an absent father than to be in a two-parent family (OR = 0.92), which is also significant in the contrast between single fathers and mothers.

A mother’s parenting stress has no effect on family configurations, but if fathers report less stress than mothers, there is a significantly greater likelihood that parents will not be together (OR = 1.05), with similar effects on both single motherhood and single fatherhood. Experiencing the stress of parenthood differently appears to divide couples, and like other differences, reduces the likelihood of coresidential parenting, but makes less difference in who gets primary custody of the child.

Mothers’ multiple partner fertility significantly increases the likelihood that parents will not be together (OR = 1.23), and the effect increases the odds the child lives with the father rather than the mother. The father’s multiple-partner fertility has an even stronger significant effect (reversed), both powerfully increasing single parenthood (OR = 1.63) and increasing the likelihood that the child lives in a single-mother (absent father) family (OR = 1.70). Unlike the case for most women with children by multiple partners, for men to spend time with some of his children, he may leave his other children (and their mothers) behind.

The effects of the parents’ reported thoughts of abortion were limited. If only the mother, but not the father, reported having thoughts of abortion, she was more, not less, likely to be a single parent. Fathers’ thoughts about abortion had no significant effect on parenting structure.

Parental Resources

Mothers whose incomes were low enough to have been receiving public assistance before the child’s birth are less likely to be coresident with the child’s father at 36 months, and the child is slightly more likely to be living with his/her father than living in a two-parent family. Fathers’ income has a more balanced effect, reducing the likelihood that the child will be living with a single parent about equally between single mothers and single fathers.

Educational resources have their only effect when fathers are more educated than mothers. In this case, if the relationship is not coresidential at 36 months, the child is marginally more likely to be living with a single father than if parents have the same approximate level of education or the mother has attained more education.

The effects of social support are complex. Children whose mothers reported having more involved fathers when they were growing up are less likely to live with a single father (OR = 0.79 for single fathers). However, the extent of a father’s own father’s involvement has no significant effect of any kind.

Our more general measure of social support has no effect, either, whether measured as specified or measured separately for mothers and fathers (data not presented). Religious service attendance, in contrast, was associated with family structure, but not as expected. The least stable relationships occur when only mothers attend services weekly (the reference category); if fathers join them, little gain in stability appears (not significant). In fact, relationships are most stable among couples in which only the father attends, but the mother does not, and those in which neither attends often. Differences in religiosity may contribute to lower relationship quality and greater relationship instability, but fathers’ greater religious involvement has been linked to greater involvement with children (King, 2003), which may serve to stabilize families, even when the mother is not as religious.

Couple/Family-Level Characteristics

Family context had the expected effect on subsequent parental structures. Not surprisingly, couples who were living together when their child was born are far less likely to be parenting apart 3 years later than those who were not living together. Coresidence at the child’s birth reduces the odds of both being a single father and an absent father 3 years later, but interestingly, the effect is significantly stronger for absent fatherhood. If coresident parents separate, the child is more likely to be living with the father than with the mother, likely reflecting the stronger father–child bond that is forged in coresidence than when they live apart. Each additional level of relationship supportiveness increases couples’ parenting together, as with coresidence, but in this case, the effects are almost exactly the same in reducing the likelihood of both single motherhood and single fatherhood.

Child characteristics have much less influence on parental structure. Child gender was not a significant predictor in any of the models. Child disability, however, does strongly increase the likelihood that parents will parent apart.

Older fathers, consistent with previous research, are less likely to be parenting separately than younger fathers, but if they are parenting apart, there is a slightly stronger likelihood that they will be single fathers.

Black parents are more likely than non-Hispanic Whites to parent separately, whereas Hispanic parents are more likely to parent within a two-parent family than are non-Hispanic Whites. There are no racial/ethnic differences in terms of which parent becomes a single parent.

Discussion

Using three waves of data from a sample of urban parents of young children in the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study, and relying on the microstructural perspective, we sought to determine the extent to which (a) characteristics and attitudes of mothers and fathers predict coresidential parenting versus single parenting and (b) which parent (father or mother) becomes a single parent in the event of a separation. We found strong support for the existence of factors that destabilize relationships of new parents, as well as for the notion that negative maternal characteristics such as poverty, multiple partner fertility, depression, and substance use (illegal drugs and greater alcohol usage than the child’s father) all increase the likelihood that the child lives in a single-father family, while men with multiple partner fertility or depression are likely to become absent fathers. Clearly context matters: It is more difficult to maintain a relationship in adverse circumstances. Furthermore, net of the strong normative pressure for children to live with their mothers, the factors that affect maternal and paternal custody are very similar.

Parental Characteristics and Attitudes

The parental characteristics and attitudes examined reflect one of many levels (e.g., individual, couple, and family) within the microstructural perspective that shape the social context of relationships and which contribute to the motivations and resources that affect parents’ willingness and ability to care for their children. Parental depression increases the likelihood that parents will not be together, with mother’s depression contributing to single-father families and a father’s depression contributing to single-mother families. A mother’s drug use contributes to the child living with the father, although a father’s drug use reduces single parenthood, significantly so for single-mother families. A mother’s alcohol use has no effect unless it is higher than the father’s, in which case the child is more likely to be with the father. This suggests that so long as parents have the same level of alcohol use, this behavior has no effect on either partnership breakup or on who becomes the primary parent if they do break up, but that differences in alcohol use do matter. When a mother’s parenting stress is greater than the father’s, they are likely to separate, but there is no difference in whether the child lives with the mother or father.

Finally, our indicator of pregnancy intendedness, mothers’ and fathers’ thoughts of abortion, had few effects, and those were opposite the ones predicted. These unexpected findings suggests that this question may not be a good indicator of pregnancy intendedness, perhaps because many would never think of an abortion, and many more would not report having done so.

Overall, these results support prior research that shows that parents’ individual strengths and limitations influence the stability of their relationships as well as their ability to maintain custody of and care for their children after separation. The findings also highlight the importance of examining couple dynamics in studies of family structure and relationship transitions.

Parental Resources

The microstructural perspective posits that having more financial, social, and psychological resources generally supports parenting coresidentially. As we expected, mothers’ receipt of public assistance reduced the likelihood that couples live and parent together and increased the likelihood that the child lives with his/her father. However, there is no evidence that wealthier fathers are better able to obtain custody. Fathers with greater income in the year before their child was born were more likely to be coresiding with the child’s mother 36 months later, but with no difference between single and absent fathers. In contrast, fathers with more education than mothers were particularly likely to become single parents, compared with parenting together. Perhaps the issue is not money, but the knowledge and confidence education might bring that lead to fathers being able to successfully attain primary custody of their children. Previous research on the characteristics of single mothers and single fathers shows that single fathers are more highly educated than single mothers (Zhan & Pandey, 2004), which suggests that parental education plays a role in determining which parent gets custody after a separation.

Fathers’ own father’s involvement while growing up had no effect on fathers’ parental structure. Furthermore, greater involvement of the mothers’ fathers reduced the odds of mother absence (compared with remaining in a two-parent family). Contrary to our expectations, fathers’ attitudes toward fatherhood had no significant effect on their parental structure at 36 months. It may be that a stronger scale (with more items) would produce significant effects, but the timing of the questions (near the birth of the child), which produced very positive responses and little variance, might also be a problem. These results may also suggest that parents’ negative behaviors (e.g., depression, drug use) may matter more when determining which parent becomes the custodial parent after separation than early family background factors or parents’ attitudes about parenting.

Couple/Family-Level Characteristics

Some of our most powerful results involved our measures of couple and family context. Parents who were coresident at baseline were much less likely to be parenting separately after 36 months than those who became parents while living separately. This was also the case for couples with strongly supportive relationships. If coresident fathers did separate, however, they were more likely to become single fathers than absent fathers, reflecting their likely closer relationship with and greater commitment to their child, whereas couple relationship supportiveness did not predict who became the single parent, suggesting these dynamics are not closely related to parenting.

The only child-related characteristic to have an effect was child disability, which increased the likelihood of parenting separately. Child disability does strongly increase the likelihood that parents will parent apart, consistent with other studies (Goldscheider & Spearin, 2003), which suggests that caring for a child with disabilities may increase relationship problems. In contrast to our expectation that it would be fathers rather than mothers who would relinquish custody, the results suggest that having a child with a disability significantly increases men’s likelihood of being a single parent. This finding should receive further research.

Finally, we found little new in our results by race/ethnicity, as none of the fathers in other racial categories were significantly different from non-Hispanic Whites in their likelihood of being a single compared with an absent father.

Although we could not measure the effects of the strong norm that presumes maternal custody, we could see its effects in a number of these results. For example, maternal depression, which would seem to make women less likely to be custodial parents (as is the case for men), actually increases the likelihood of being a single mother, possibly because she is unable to keep her couple relationship together. A similar explanation would seem appropriate for the effects of maternal stress, which increases single-mother families, as well as using alcohol more than the father. These are cases in which the norm of maternal custody may not benefit the child.

Limitations of Current Study

Although this is the first study to distinguish maternal and paternal factors affecting the likelihood that mothers versus fathers become single parents, using data that are representative of major urban areas in the United States, the study has some limitations that should be noted. First, the response rate for unmarried fathers, particularly nonresidential fathers, was modest, and restricting our sample to fathers that participated in all three waves of the survey may also have resulted in some selection. However, we tested for differences in associations between fathers in different relationships at the time of the child’s birth and found no important differences. Second, the data do not contain detailed information about whether the parents in the study chose to become single parents, or were required to assume custody of their children. Third, we examined children’s living arrangements at a single point in time (36 months), but recognize that family structure may be more fluid. The longitudinal nature of the Fragile Families data will facilitate future research on the stability of single custodial father and mother households. Fourth, the Fragile Families data lack sufficient information about a number of other factors that might be important for this analysis, including parental personality characteristics, the legal system’s bias toward custodial motherhood, as well as the role of domestic violence. Finally, because of limitations in the data, we could not examine neighborhood and community-level factors and how they contribute to the transition to single parenthood. Given the limited information currently available on single custodial fathers, our focus has been on documenting factors that distinguish between absent and single fatherhood. However, future research on family structure and family transitions should pay closer attention to the social and cultural contexts of child custody decisions.

Contributions of Present Study

Despite these limitations, the current study has many strengths and improves our understanding of the predictors of becoming a single father versus a single mother. It is the first to use data on and from both mothers and fathers in a large longitudinal study, contributing to our understanding of how characteristics of both fathers and mothers, as well as the structural and economic constraints and opportunities that both parents experience, contribute to single-parent families. This approach is necessary given the growing number and growing diversity of single-parent families, with more and more fathers becoming single custodial parents.

Directions for Future Research

Future research needs to take into account the fluidity and complexity of children’s living arrangements. For the current study, we have treated this fluidity dichotomously. By using additional waves of Fragile Families data, future researchers may examine further the changing nature of parents’ relationships and the complexity of their transitions into and out of relationships. It would also be helpful to have a measure of fathers’ orientation toward fatherhood taken substantially before the euphoria of a recent birth.

Policy and Practice Implications

Our findings highlight the changing nature and diversity of families within the United States and can be used to inform program and policymakers’ understanding of factors that lead to the formation of single-father and single-mother families. Given high rates of nonmarital fertility and divorce in the United States, father custody remains a viable option for many separating families. Any holistic policy or program to promote the well-being of children in single-parent families should provide targeted services to both mothers and fathers when feasible. Work aimed at improving the measurement and collection of single-father data in nationally representative surveys and including single fathers in analytical work is well warranted.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Research made possible with the generous support of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) through Grant # 1PO1-HD045610-01A1, Transition to Fatherhood.

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