Unmarried Fathers’ Earnings Trajectories: Does Partnership Status Matter?

Married men earn more than unmarried men. Previous research suggests that marriage itself causes some of the difference, but includes few men who fathered children out of wedlock. This paper asks whether increasing marriage (and possibly cohabitation) following a non-marital birth is likely to increase fathers’ earnings and labor supply. The analyses are based on a new birth cohort study the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study which follows unmarried parents for the first five years after their child’s birth. Results provide some support for the idea that increasing marriage will lead to increased fathers’ earnings.Cohabitation, marriage, income, men, males, earnings, income, children

Beyond Absenteeism: Father Incarceration and its Effects on Children’s Development

High rates of incarceration among American men, coupled with high rates of fatherhood among men in prison, have motivated recent research on the effects of parental imprisonment on children’s development. We contribute to this literature using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the effects of paternal incarceration on developmental and school readiness outcomes for approximately 3,000 urban children. We estimate cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models that control not only for fathers’ basic demographic characteristics and a rich set of potential confounders, but also for several measures of pre-incarceration child development, and family fixed effects. We find that paternal incarceration is positively associated with children’s externalizing problems at age five. Results are mixed with respect to attention problems, and we find some evidence that children of incarcerated fathers experience less anxiety than their peers. The observed effects of incarceration on child behavioral problems are significantly stronger than the effects of other forms of father absence, suggesting that children with incarcerated fathers may require specialized support from caretakers, teachers, and social service providers.Fragile families, childbearing, nonmarital childbearing, fartherhood, fathers, incarceration

Incarceration and support for children in fragile families

High US incarceration rates have motivated recent research on the negative effects of imprisonment on later employment, earnings, and family relationships. Given the high rates of fatherhood among men in jails and prisons, a large number of children are placed at considerable risk when a parent is incarcerated. This paper examines one dimension of the economic risk faced by children of incarcerated fathers: the reduction in the financial support that they receive. We use a population-based sample of urban children to examine the effects of incarceration on this support. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models indicate that men with incarceration histories are significantly less likely to contribute to their families and those that do contribute provide significantly less. These negative effects of incarceration on fathers' financial support are due not only to diminished performance in the labor market by formerly incarcerated men, but also to their increased likelihood to live apart from their children. Men contribute far less through child support (formal or informal) than they do when they share their earnings within their household, suggesting that the destabilizing effects of incarceration on family relationships place children at significant economic disadvantage

Interaction of the Essential Drosophila Nuclear Protein YA with P0/AP3 in the Cytoplasm and in Vitro: Implications for Developmental Regulation of YA's Subcellular Location

AbstractThe Drosophila nuclear lamina protein YA is essential for the transition from female meiosis to embryo mitosis. Its localization and, hence, function is under developmental and cell cycle controls. YA protein is hyperphosphorylated and cytoplasmic in ovaries. Upon egg activation, YA is partially dephosphorylated and acquires the ability to enter nuclei. Its function is first detected at this time. To investigate the cytoplasmic retention machinery that keeps YA from entering nuclei, we used affinity chromatography and blot overlay assays to identify cytoplasmic proteins that associate with YA. Drosophila P0/AP3, a ribosomal protein that is also an apurinic/apyrimidinic endonuclease, binds to YA in ovary and embryo cytoplasms. P0 and YA bind specifically and directly in vitro and are present in a 20S complex in the cytoplasmic extracts. YA protein can be phosphorylated by MAPK, but not by p34Cdc2 kinase, in vitro. This phosphorylation increases YA's binding to P0. We propose that the P0-containing 20S cytoplasmic complex retains hyperphosphorylated ovarian YA in the cytoplasm. In response to egg activation, YA is partially dephosphorylated and its binding to the 20S complex is reduced. Hence, some YA dissociates from the complex and enters nuclei. Consistent with this model, decreasing P0 levels partially suppress a hypomorphic Ya mutant allele

The effect of paternal incarceration on material hardship

Widespread use of incarceration in the US, coupled with high rates of inmate fatherhood, has raised concerns for the wellbeing of more than two million affected children. The deleterious and long term effects of incarceration on men's financial and relationship stability are well-established. Incarceration also compromises family material wellbeing, and partners are at risk of hardship and stress, which may diminish capacity for positive parenting and harm children's development. However, little is known about the links between father incarceration and family material wellbeing. Using the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing survey we examine the extent to which fathers' incarceration increases the material hardship experienced by their families. We find that incarceration indeed increases hardship for families, by both reducing household income and disrupting family relationships and routines. These findings underscore the need for criminal justice agencies and social service providers to help mitigate the risks associated with a father's incarceration

Unmarried fathers' earnings trajectories: does partnership status matter?

Married men earn more than unmarried men. Previous research suggests that marriage itself "causes" some of the difference, but includes few men who fathered children out of wedlock. This paper asks whether increasing marriage (and possibly cohabitation) following a non-marital birth is likely to increase fathers' earnings and labor supply. The analyses are based on a new birth cohort study—the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study—which follows unmarried parents for the first five years after their child's birth. Results provide some support for the idea that increasing marriage will lead to increase

Beyond absenteeism : father incarceration and child development

High rates of incarceration among American men, coupled with high rates of fatherhood among men in prison, have motivated recent research on the effects of parental imprisonment on children's development. We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to examine the relationship between paternal incarceration and developmental outcomes for approximately 3,000 urban children. We estimate cross-sectional and longitudinal regression models that control not only for fathers' basic demographic characteristics and a rich set of potential confounders, but also for several measures of pre-incarceration child development and family fixed effects. We find significant increases in aggressive behaviors among children whose fathers are incarcerated, and some evidence of increased attention problems. The estimated effects of paternal incarceration are stronger than those of other forms of father absence, suggesting that children with incarcerated fathers may require specialized support from caretakers, teachers, and social service providers. The estimated effects are stronger for children who lived with their fathers prior to incarceration, but are also significant for children of nonresident fathers, suggesting that incarceration places children at risk through family hardships including and beyond parent-child separation

The influence of ‘topic and resource’ on some aspects of social theorising

Developments in sociological theory since the 1960s have been responses to disciplinary problems rather than changes in fashion. The problem of topic and resource—where sociology has to use everyday understandings and practices as study resources even though they are legitimate topics of enquiry—has been an important and sometimes neglected spur to many of these developments. The turn to discourse, conversation analysis and the rise of Bourdieu's reflexivity are all attempts to address the problem, but each is shown to be unsatisfactory in different ways. In summary, they seek to address the issue as requiring either a principled methodological or a principled theoretical solution, and neither approach is capable of comprehensively addressing the matter. It is argued that these ‘solutions’ depend, in turn, on one of two particular construals of what the ‘problem’ consists in, neither of which is necessary or coherent. Each, it is argued, depends on a philosophical trick: making language out to need formal improvement (the Bertrand Russell trick) or introducing inappropriate scepticism to everyday life (the René Descartes trick). It is suggested that treating topic and resource not as a problem but as something which opens up new areas of investigation successfully deflates the issue and avoids unnecessary theoretical and methodological contortions

Size-Dependent Transition to High-Dimensional Chaotic Dynamics in a Two-Dimensional Excitable Medium

The spatiotemporal dynamics of an excitable medium with multiple spiral defects is shown to vary smoothly with system size from short-lived transients for small systems to extensive chaos for large systems. A comparison of the Lyapunov dimension density with the average spiral defect density suggests an average dimension per spiral defect varying between three and seven. We discuss some implications of these results for experimental studies of excitable media.Comment: 5 pages, Latex, 4 figure