Father -figures and child development: How interchangeable are social fathers and biological fathers?

摘要

The extent of father-figure interchangeability in low-income minority families was assessed. Dominant theories in the fatherhood literature argue that biological fathers in nuclear/conjugal families are best for children. However, some family theories imply that, under certain social conditions, children can do well with either social or biological fathers. The data came from the Three-City Study, a welfare evaluation being conducted in Boston, San Antonio, and Chicago. This panel data set includes poor and near-poor families residing in low-income urban neighborhoods. A total of 1,367 families provided sufficient data for the father-figure interchangeability study. Fifty-eight percent of the maternal caregivers in these families were Latino (of any race) and 40% were Black (non-Latino). Seventy-three percent of children participating in the study had a caregiving father-figure at some point during an approximately 16-month study. Father-figures included biological fathers, romantic-partners social fathers, or relative social fathers. Child well-being was assessed with 3 indicators of child conduct, 2 indicators of cognitive skills, and one indicator of mental health. Models were estimated with logistic and linear regression analyses to compare children with different kinds of father figures to one another on each of the well-being measures. Children without father-figures served as a baseline group. The findings suggest that low-income Black children with social fathers may have comparable well being levels to low-income Black children with biological fathers. For Latino families, biological fathers were typically associated with better child well being. The term "segmented-interchangeability" is said to characterize the findings. Theoretical implications are discussed.