Men who father children with more than one woman: a contemporary portrait of multiple-partner fertility

Associations Between Individual and Family Level Characteristics and Parenting Practices in Incarcerated African American Fathers

“…In addition, the finding that length of time spent incarcerated and number of relationships bearing children were negatively associated with responsive parenting and positively associated with restrictive parenting is somewhat related to previous literature (Furstenberg and Cherlin 1991; Logan et al 2006; Manning and Smock 1999). This finding was only partially in-line with our hypothesis that increased periods of incarceration would be associated with both decreased responsive and restrictive parenting, based on decreased opportunity to parent.…”

“…This finding was only partially in-line with our hypothesis that increased periods of incarceration would be associated with both decreased responsive and restrictive parenting, based on decreased opportunity to parent. However, the finding that time spent incarcerated was negatively related to responsive and positively related to restrictive parenting underscores the notion that that cumulatively lengthier incarceration may correspond with higher risk for negative outcomes, including use of restrictive parenting (Chipman et al 2000; Logan et al 2006). …”

“…Fathering children in multiple relationships is fairly common amongst incarcerated fathers, with one study of fragile families suggesting that over 60% of their sample who reported multiple-partner fertility had served time in jail (Logan et al 2006). Research suggests that nonresident fathers who form new families tend to extricate themselves by having less contact with their children from earlier relationships (Furstenberg and Cherlin 1991; Manning and Smock 1999).…”

New Partners, More Kids

“…In the mid-twentieth century, young unmarried women who became pregnant often put their child up for adoption, then later formed marriages with another man and had additional children; this, too, would be MPF, though we have no estimates of the prevalence of such behavior. Also in the twentieth century, divorce surpassed spousal death as the primary way marriages among men and women in their childbearing years ended, with MPF occurring when a married parent divorced, remarried, and had additional children with his or her new spouse (Logan et al 2006). By the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, however, rising rates of nonmarital childbearing (but lower rates of giving up children from nonmarital births) (Jones 2009; Manlove et al 2010) and declining rates of remarriage (Brown and Lin 2013) have again shifted the character of MPF, with some or all births across partnerships occurring outside of marriage.…”

From Prison to Parenting

“…Fathering children from multiple relationships is common among incarcerated fathers but can have consequences for the children if the father did not reside in the home prior to incarceration. Research suggests that fathers who form new families; tend to have less contact with children from previous relationships (Logan, Manlove, Ikramullah, & Cottingham, 2006). As a result, fathers have different provider roles with their different children.…”