Resident Black Fathers' Involvement: A Comparative Analysis of Married and Unwed, Cohabitating Fathers

Increasing fathers' involvement with their children has become a priority in recent years. Marriage promotion programs have been offered as the primary vehicles for increasing paternal involvement. Although marriage is likely to provide fathers with increased access and opportunity for paternal involvement, much less is known about the ways in which cohabitation, an increasingly popular coresident family formation, serves to facilitate paternal involvement. Therefore, this study examined Black fathers' involvement with their children among men in coresident family formations. The data for this study were drawn from a sample of 617 Black fathers participating in the 5-year follow-up data collection wave of the Fragile Families and Child Well-being Study. The results revealed that although Black married fathers and Black unwed cohabitating fathers report similar levels of involvement, regression analyses indicate that there are distinct predictors for each family formation. Implications for fatherhood research are also included.