Fathering with Multiple Partners: Links to Children's Well-Being in Early Childhood.

The claim that multiple partner fertility may pose a risk of adverse outcomes for children has not been tested. We test this argument using a sample of 4,027 resident fathers and children from the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Survey by examining the pathways through which fathers' multipartnered fertility is associated with children's externalizing behaviors and physical health status at 36 months. Path analyses indicate that multiple partner fertility exerted both a significant direct and indirect effect through paternal depression to influence children's externalizing behaviors. Fathers' multiple partner fertility also exerted a significant indirect effect through one mediator-father involvement-to influence children's physical health. This evidence suggests that the disruptions brought about by multipartnered fertility are important for understanding child well-being. Key Words: child/adolescent outcomes, family structure, father-child relations, fatherhood, Fragile Families and Child Well-being (FFCW). well-being. Recent trends in marriage and fertility suggest that some individuals may have biological children with more than one partner - a process referred to as "multiple partner fertility" (Furstenberg, 1995; Mincy, 2001). Estimates indicate that as many as 8% of U.S. men aged 15-44 report multiple partner fertility, and this percentage increases with age (Guzzo & Furstenberg, 2007; Logan, Manlove, Ikramullah, & Cottingham, 2006). A growing concern is the well-being of children who are the products of unions characterized by multiple partner fertility (Carlson & Furstenberg, 2006; Harknett & Knab, 2007). Although a larger body of research has examined how family complexities result from divorce, remarriage, and the creation of stepfamilies and how these new families influence child well-being, several key distinctions between multiple partner fertility and stepfamilies exist: Not all stepfamilies share a common child, not all multipartnered fertility couples have married, and men experiencing multiple partner fertility typically have repartnered earlier in the life course (Harknett & Knab). The trend toward family diversity, including multiple partner fertility, has led researchers to question the complexities and varieties of experiences that children in such contexts may face. Some researchers posit that changes in family configurations and parenting across multiple households may have a cumulative negative effect on children (Elder, 1974). Regrettably, however, researchers have yet to explore the questions of whether and how parenting with multiple partners is associated with the well-being of young children. Some scholars speculate that, in the context of multiple partner fertility, children may be at greater risk of adverse outcomes because of resource constraints in the form of temporal and economic supports for children (Carlson & Furstenberg, 2006; Furstenberg, 1995; Manning & Smock, 2000) and the number of competing demands that parents may have when children live across different households (Meyer, Cancian, & Cook, 2005). The stressors associated with the complex family configurations that result from multiple partner fertility may also influence the quality of parenting provided by either parent as a result of modifications in family dynamics and organization across different households. These issues raise a generally important question: How do young children whose parents experience multiple partner fertility fare in terms of their well-being? In this paper, we focus on the influence of fathers' multiple partner fertility on two aspects of young children's well-being in the preschool years: externalizing behaviors and physical health status. Our aim is to test the notion, suggested by Carlson and Furstenberg (2006), that young children may be at greater risk of adverse outcomes in the context of multiple partner fertility. We consider whether fathers' multiple partner fertility is associated with the social and emotional well-being of children, that is, their externalizing behaviors, and physical health status, and we examine how such effects come about by testing the mechanisms through which such associations may exist. …