Marcy Carlson (University of Wisconsin)

“Fathers Unequal: U.S. Men as Partners and Parents in an Era of Rapid Family Change”

Abstract

While major changes in U.S. family demography—and their growing divergence by socioeconomic status—have received notable attention, less well understood is the extent to which the nature and implications of family change may differ between men and women, mothers and fathers. After describing changing patterns of family demography over time, we use data from the Current Population Survey to show trends in fathers’ co-residence with children, overall and by education. Then, we explore divergence in fathers’ family life course by education for the cohort of U.S. men born 1957-64 and followed in the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1979. We find that about one-third of all men raised their children only within marriage (i.e., the so-called ‘package deal’) to ages 45-52, but the prevalence notably diverges by education: fully 55 percent of men with a college degree raised their children within marriage, compared to only 17 percent of men with less than a high-school education. We examine antecedent factors that may account for this educational gradient, and we also analyze women’s family life course for comparison. We also include a cohort comparison using data from the NLSY 1997 to consider change in men’s family experiences over two decades. The fact that men’s proximate family involvement has declined over time and varies by educational attainment signals important (and likely growing) inequality in how men experience family life—and how children benefit from paternal involvement, which has important implications for broader societal institutions focused on the next generation.