Loose Ties? Determinants of Father–Child Contact After Separation in Germany

• Author: Michaela Kreyenfeld,Heike Trappe,Katja Köppen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12504
• Published date: 01 October 2018
• Date: 01 October 2018

K K University of Rostock

M K Hertie School of Governance∗

H T University of Rostock∗∗

Loose Ties? Determinants of Father–Child Contact

After Separation in Germany

Objective: This article examines the determi-

nants of father–child contact in Germany after

divorce and separation, with a special emphasis

on the role of legal child support.

Background: The contact separated fathers

have with their children is a policy-relevant

issue that has been intensively addressed in pre-

vious research for the United States, the United

Kingdom, and Canada. For continental Europe,

there has been far less research on this topic.

This article investigated how fathers’ union

status at childbirth, custody arrangements, and

past and present partnership dynamics affect

the level of contact they had with their rst-born

child from a prior union.

Method: Data were used from Wave 2

(2009–2010) to Wave 8 (2015–2016) of the

German Family Panel pairfam (www.pairfam

.de). With a nal sample size of 285 fathers, pop-

ulation average logistic models were estimated

that examined nonresident fathers’ probability

University of Rostock, Institute of Sociology and

Demography, Ulmenstr.69, 18055 Rostock, Germany

(katja.koeppen@uni-rostock.de).

∗Hertie School of Governance, Friedrichstraße 180, 10117

Berlin, Germany.

∗∗University of Rostock, Institute of Sociology and

Demography, Ulmenstr.69, 18055 Rostock, Germany.

Key Words: custody, divorce,fatherhood, parent–child

relationships, separation.

of having frequent contact versus having little

or no contact with their rst-born children.

Results: Whether a nonresident father shared

legal custody with the mother was a decisive fac-

tor in whether he had regular contact with his

minor child, particularly if he was not living with

the mother of the child at the time of delivery.

There were strong interaction effects between

having joint legal custody and the time since the

parental separation. Joint legal custody did not

have an immediate impact on father–child con-

tact around the time of separation, but as time

elapsed, men without joint legal custody were

more likely to lose contact with their children

than men with joint legal custody.

Conclusion: Joint legal custody may providean

institutional arrangement for separated parents

to exercise their responsibilityfor the well-being

of their childrenand thus be conducive to regular

father–child contact.

The images and expectations of fatherhood have

undergone radical changes in recent decades.

Although the normative pressure to act as an

involved father has increased over time, fathers

themselves have also expressed a growing

desire to be more actively involved in the lives

of their children (Adler & Lenz, 2016; Kauf-

man, 2013). This normative expectation and

individual desire might extend beyond parental

breakup. Given the high rates of separation and

divorce in most developed countries and the

Journal of Marriage and Family 80 (October 2018): 1163–1175 1163

DOI:10.1111/jomf.12504