Coparenting and Father Involvement in Married and Unmarried Coresident Couples

• Author: Bryndl Hohmann‐Marriott
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00805.x
• Published date: 01 February 2011
• Date: 01 February 2011

BRYNDL HOHMANN-MARRIOTT University of Otago

Coparenting and Father Involvement in Married and

Unmarried Coresident Couples

Children can benef‌it from involved fathers and

cooperative parents, a benef‌it which may be

particularly important to the growing popula-

tion of children born to unmarried parents. This

study observes father involvement and coparent-

ing in 5,407 married and unmarried cohabiting

couples with a 2-year-old child in the Early

Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth Cohort

(ECLS-B). A link was found between cooperative

coparenting and father involvement for all cou-

ples. Compared with married couples, couples

who married in response to the pregnancy and

couples who remained unmarried showed higher

levels of father involvement and more coopera-

tive coparenting, indicating a potentially greater

child focus.

Increasing numbers of children are being born to

unmarried parents, with nonmarital childbearing

in 2005 representing 36.8% of U.S. births, or

more than 1.5 million births, an increase of 12%

over 2002 (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2006).

It is estimated that 80% of unmarried parents

are romantically involved with each other at

the time of the baby’s birth, and about half are

cohabiting, a proportion that appears to be rising

(Bumpass & Lu, 2000; McLanahan et al., 2003).

The unmarried fathers have an opportunity to

be positively involved, thus benef‌iting their

children (Marsiglio, Amato, Day, & Lamb,

Department of Anthropology, Gender, and Sociology,

University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

(bryndl.hohmann-marriott@otago.ac.nz).

Key Words: cohabiting parents, dyadic/couple data, father-

child relations, parenting and parenthood.

2000). Fathers may be more involved when they

have a cooperative coparenting relationship with

the child’s mother (Abidin & Brunner, 1995;

Beitel & Parke, 1998; McBride & Rane, 1998),

and cooperative coparenting also enhances the

well-being of children (Abidin & Brunner, 1995;

McHale, 1995). These effects have been found

in married couples, but they have not yet been

explored in unmarried cohabiting couples. It

is thus necessary to expand our knowledge of

the complex interrelationships among family

members in this emerging family form.

Coparenting represents the nexus of the

mother-father relationship and the parent-

child relationship, and as such, it is an

ideal locus for prevention and intervention

efforts (Feinberg, 2002). Indeed, several recent

initiatives seeking to improve at-risk fathers’

involvement with their children emphasize

coparenting, or team parenting (e.g., Hanks

& Smith, 2005; Strengthening Fragile Families

Training Institute, 2006).

This study examines the association of

coparenting with father involvement in the

context of the couple’s relationship. Using

the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study – Birth

Cohort (ECLS-B), the analysis focuses on

coresident parents with a shared 2-year-old child.

The focus is on the association of three aspects

of coparenting (i.e., support, responsibility, and

dissonance), with three core aspects of father

involvement (i.e., engagement, accessibility,

and responsibility). This analysis distinguishes

among parents who were married before the

pregnancy, those who married in response to the

pregnancy, and those who remained unmarried.

It examines both father and mother reports,

296 Journal of Marriage and Family 73 (February 2011): 296– 309

DOI:10.1111/j.1741-3737.2010.00805.x