Changes in marital and fertility behavior have influenced the role of father for many men. We use data from the first two waves of the National Survey of Families and Households to examine various sociodemographic, situational, and attitudinal characteristics that might influence the degree of contact between nonresidential fathers and their minor children. We tap two different dimensions of distance parenting and find that although several variables influence both visiting and talking on the telephone or writing letters, some factors (the presence of multiple children in a household) predict visiting only, while others (child's age and gender) predict only verbal/written contact. Similarly, some of the life-course decisions made by fathers appear to crowd out their involvement with nonresidential children, whereas other decisions reinforce their parenting behavior.

Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Our purpose in this paper is first, to examine patterns of first marriage among black and white women in the United States, and then, to assess the various factors that underlie these patterns. Three major differences exist between the first marriage patterns of black and white women: lower proportions of blacks marry than whites, the proportion of women who ever marry has declined substantially across cohorts of black women but comparatively modestly across cohorts of white women, and increased education is associated negatively, if only slightly, with the probability of ever marrying among white women, but is associated positively among black women. The observed racial divergence of marriage patterns is demonstrated to be consistent with three factors differentially experienced by blacks and whites: the marriage squeeze, labor market success, and out-of-wedlock childbearing. Terms of use: Documents inOur a.nalysis of the marriage squeeze indicates that, given the traditional range of age differences between spouses, there is a greater mismatch in terms of sheer numbers of women and men among blacks than among whites for cohorts born prior to the late 1950s. Along economic lines, we find that an individual's employment status is positively associated with the propensity to marry and that the labor market situation of less-educated young black men and women is generally poor and has deteriorated significantly with the passage of time in comparison to other groups in the United States. Last, we provide evidence that having an out-of-wedlock child at an early age is strongly negatively associated with the likelihood that a woman will ultimately marry.

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The candidate selection process in the United States has been, since the second half of the 20th century, one of the most inclusive and decentralized among the developed democracies. While such systems often presuppose party weakness or lack of control over the process, this article shows that patterns of campaign finance indicate that party weakness over candidate selection in the U.S. case may be overestimated. It also argues that a very open selection process offers opportunities for insurgent movements within parties that bring new ideas and demands. Finally, it suggests that political culture may mediate the relationship between party strength and democratized selection methods.

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