Loose Ties? Determinants of Father–Child Contact After Separation in Germany

Abstract

Objective: This article examines the determinants of father-child contact in Germany after divorce and separation, with a special emphasis on the role of legal child support. Background: The contact separated fathers have with their children is a policy-relevant issue that has been intensively addressed in previous research for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. For continental Europe, there has been far less research on this topic. This article investigated how fathers' union status at childbirth, custody arrangements, and past and present partnership dynamics affect the level of contact they had with their first-born child from a prior union. Method: Data were used from Wave 2 (2009)(2010) to Wave 8 (2015Wave 8 ( -2016 of the German Family Panel pairfam (www.pairfam .de). With a final sample size of 285 fathers, population average logistic models were estimated that examined nonresident fathers' probability

Personal and Online Contact during the COVID-19 Pandemic among Nonresident Parents and their Children in Hungary

“…The majority of research on this topic focuses mainly on the frequency and quality of face-to-face visitation between nonresident parents and their children (K€ oppen, Kreyenfeld, and Trappe 2018, Szalma and R ekai 2019, Westphal, Poortman, and van der Lippe 2014. Although there have been some studies that explored communication online or via telephone (Marryat, Reid, and Wasoff 2009;Hughes and Funston 2006;Leite and McKenry 2002), they remained marginal.…”

Joint Physical Custody and Adolescents’ Life Satisfaction in 37 North American and European Countries

“…One of the factors that has been identified as being most important for child well‐being after family dissolution is the involvement of the father. It is a worldwide phenomenon that in the majority of families, children stay with their mothers after parental break up and suffer from less contact or even no contact and involvement with their fathers (e.g., Holt, 2016; Kalmijn, 2015; Köppen, Kreyenfeld, & Trappe, 2018). However, it has been shown that the involvement of fathers after family dissolution has positive effects on children’s well‐being in many respects (e.g., Adamsons & Johnson, 2013; Beckmeyer, Stafford Markham, & Troilo, 2019; Kalmijn, 2016; Poortman, 2018).…”

Fatherhood in Complex Families: Ties between Adult Children, Biological Fathers, and Stepfathers

“…The implications for the nature of parent–child ties have been profound, as multiple biological parents and stepparents may have to coexist and coordinate their relations with a child (Ganong & Coleman, ). Thus far, particular interest has been directed to the disadvantaged position of divorced fathers in the development of close ties with their children (Hetherington, ; Kalmijn, ; Kalmijn, ; Köppen, Kreyenfeld, & Trappe, ). The emphasis on divorced fathers is partially driven by the fact that mothers generally assume a primary caretaking role after parental divorce, while fathers often become less involved in childcare (Allen & Hawkins, ).…”