Moving Out: Transition to Nonresidence Among Resident Fathers in the United States, 1968–1997

This article provides the first individual-level estimates of the change over time in the probability of nonresidence for initially resident fathers in the United States. Drawing on the 1968-1997 waves of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, we used discrete-time event history models to compute the probabilities of nonresidence for six 5-year periods. Our sample consists of men (N = 1,388) who are coresident with their biological children at the time of birth. We found that the observed probability of nonresidence doubled over the three decades of the study period, but not linearly. The risk increased substantially in the 1980s and then stabilized in the 1990s. Our multivariate models show that the stabilization was due to changes over time in characteristics such as income; had these remained constant, the likelihood of nonresi dence would have increased throughout the study period. Both fathers' and mothers' incomes reduce the likelihood of paternal nonresidence, as do mothers' employment hours. Key Words: family change, fatherhood, fathers, nonresident fathers, PSID. One of the most visible changes in family life during the last three decades has been the increase in nonresident fatherhood and the accompanying rise in single-parent, predominantly mother-only households. This trend has aroused substantial scholarly interest and public concern because, on average, children fare better when they live with both biological parents (see Marsiglio, Amato, Day, & Lamb, 2000, for a review of findings). Yet we do not have an answer to the basic question: What is the probability that fathers who initially live with their children will experience nonresidence, and how has that probability changed over time? To date, there has been no study of the trend in fathers' transitions from living with their biological children to living apart from those children. This gap is particularly striking because most children are living with their biological fathers at the time of birth (Bumpass & Lu, 2000). Thus, the modal experience of nonresidence for fathers is the transition from residence with their biological children to nonresidence. Although the typical transition to nonresidence for initially resident fathers occurs in the context of union disruption, it is difficult to determine the probabilities of the transition to nonresidence directly from the disruption literature for two reasons. First, not all men in unions are fathers; one quarter of married couples during the prime childbearing ages of 20 to 44 do not have children present (Fields & Casper, 2002). Second, recent studies of union disruption do not account explicitly for the presence or absence of children, and therefore for men's fatherhood status. Prior work using data from the 1980s indicates that dissolution rates are lower among parents (Heaton, 1990; Lillard & Waite, 1993; Tzeng, 1992), suggesting that it is important to distinguish unions with and without children. Although recent studies show that divorce rates in the United States have leveled off (Goldstein, 1999; Raley & Bumpass, 2003; Schoen & Standish, 2001) or have investigated changes in the individual-level risk factors for marital disruption (Heaton, 2002; South, 2001; Teachman, 2002), none identifies the influence of biological fatherhood on the risk of marital disruption. Finally, the rise in father custody in recent years, though not yet a pronounced development, makes it desirable to estimate the likelihood of father nonresidence directly rather than from analyses of union disruption. We used the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) to determine the likelihood of nonresidence for fathers who are living with their children at the time of birth over the period from 1968 to 1997. Our study is the first to document this trend for fathers in the United States who become nonresident after an initial period of coresidence with their biological children. In addition, we establish demographic profiles of fathers who stay with their children and of those who do not. …