In addition to these declines, frequency of talking with mothers declines as does the amount of influence the fathers had. Payment of child support actually increases in the first 5 years, then diminishes. It is possible that these differences reflect the era in which these divorces occurred rather than the specific behavior of fathers. There are some other interesting findings in these data. As you might expect, geographic distance from the children diminishes contact as does the remarriage of either parent.
Black fathers are more likely than White fathers to stay involved.
One of Seltzer's interests in looking at these data was to examine the degree to which visitation was linked to child support. Her overall conclusion was that visitation, child support and involvement in decision-making went together. That is, father's tended to either do all three of these things or none. It is not possible from these data, however, to know whether one of these factors caused the other results. This would be important to know.