The Effects of Family Health on Health Insurance Status in Fragile Families
- Presenter:
Chair: David Bradford; Discussant: TBA Tue June 6, 2006 8:00-9:30 Room 235
Children’s characteristics may affect both a father’s willingness to both maintain a close relationship with the mother and to invest in the child. A number of studies found that married couples are more likely to divorce when their child has a serious health problem. Reichman, Corman and Noonan (2004) found even stronger effects among a sample of mostly unwed parents. That study found that one-year-old children with serious health problems are less likely than their healthy peers to live with their fathers and that their parents’ relationship commitment is more likely to have declined since they were born. This may translate to fewer paternal investments in the child.
The purpose of this study is to systematically explore the determinants of unmarried fathers’ financial and non-financial investments in their three- year-old children, focusing on the role of the child’s health status (i.e., whether they are very low birth weight or have serious health deficits) and other characteristics (gender, multiple birth, birth order), but also considering the nature and trajectory of the parents’ relationship as well as detailed individual characteristics of both parents.
We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing (FFCWB) study, a national longitudinal birth cohort study of 5,000 sets of new parents with children born between 1998 and 2000. By design, three-quarters of the births were to unmarried parents. Interviews were conducted with both parents directly following the birth, and again one and three years later. We hypothesize that unmarried fathers will provide less support when they have children of lower quality (i.e., are unhealthy).
The FFCWB data set is particularly suitable for this analysis because it includes detailed information on unmarried fathers even if they never lived in the child’s household-including how much time they spend in the child’s household, how much time they spend with the child, and the extent of support they provide in the form of money (both formal and informal child support) and goods. In addition, the survey captures the fluidity of relationships between unmarried parents; at each wave, parents were asked about their cohabitation status, changes in relationship status, and other aspects of their relationship. Finally, we have collected detailed information from the hospital medical records of the mothers and children, enabling us to better characterize serious child health problems than with the surveys alone, and have merged information on the availability of prenatal health inputs at the neighborhood level.
We consider three potential sources of paternal support during the child’s first three years of life: money, goods, and time. We estimate the effect of the child’s health status and other characteristics on paternal support, controlling for maternal and paternal characteristics including race/ethnicity, education, age, work history, health status, children with other partners, and wantedness of the child, all of which may be associated with both the child’s health and the father’s ability or willingness to provide support.
