New Families and Nonresident Father-Child Visitation

Abstract

Increasinglyfathers are living apartfrom their children and often go on to form new families. We use nonresidentfathers' longitudinal reports of visits with their children from both waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to evaluate whether and how changing family configurations influence fathers' visitation with their nonresident children. Nonresidentfathers often report reducing visitation, but almost one quarter experience increases in thefrequency of visits with their nonresident children. Generally, wefind that nonresidentfathers who form new unions (spouse or cohabiting partners) do not subsequently see their nonresident children less often than fathers who do notform new unions. Instead, it is the number of new children (particularly new biological children) that reduces the odds offathers'frequent in-person contact with nonresident children.