Parents Apart: Differences Between Unmarried and Divorcing Parents in Separated Families

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/fcre.12121
• Published date: 01 October 2014
• Author: Allison Dwyer Emory,Maureen R. Waller
• Date: 01 October 2014

PARENTS APART: DIFFERENCES BETWEEN UNMARRIED AND

DIVORCING PARENTS IN SEPARATED FAMILIES1

Maureen R. Waller and Allison Dwyer Emory

With 2 in 5 births in the United States occurring outside of marriage, parents who were never married to each other are entering

the family court system in increasing numbers. This study draws on data from the FragileFamilies and Child Wellbeing Study

to examine how the circumstances of unmarried parents who are living apart 5 years after having a child togethercompare to

those of previously married parents, as well as important variations among unmarried parents. Our results show that unmarried

parents are younger, havefewer children in common, are more likely to have children with other partners, and are more likely

to report paternal incarceration than previously married parents. Unmarried parents who did not have a close relationship at the

time of their child’s birth had the weakest connections 5 years later, reporting lower levels of nonresident father contact,

parental relationship quality, paternity establishment, and in-kind support than other parents living apart.

Key Points for the Family Court Community:

• An increasing number of separated parents were nevermar ried to each other,and these parents may have different needs

and experiences than divorcing parents when they come into contact with the family court system.

• Unmarried parents living apart have more barriers to father involvement and co-parenting than previously married

parents who live apart.

• Unmarried fathers who did not have a close relationship with mother at the time of the birth have weaker connections

to mothers and children 5 years later.

Keywords: Co-Parenting;Co-Parenting Interventions;Father Involvement;Fragile Families;Separated Families;and

Unmarried Parents.

Almost a decade ago, Family Court Review published one of the first articles comparing the

characteristics and family dynamics of divorcing and unmarried parents entering the family court

system (Insabella, Williams, & Pruett, 2003).2In the preceding three decades, the proportion of births

occurring outside of marriage had more than tripled. This study broke new ground by alerting readers

to the challenges judges and other family court professionals were confronting as the number of

unmarried parents entering family courts to establish paternity, child support orders, and parenting

time agreements had begun to “surge” (Insabella et al., 2003, p. 291). Among other issues the authors

noted, more ambiguous or complex ties between unmarried parents early in children’s lives could

result in “more complicated dissolutions and legal agreements shortly thereafter” (Insabella et al.,

2003, p. 291). New questions also appeared as more unmarried fathers sought to establish legal

relationships with their children. Many of these challenges were related to the fact that unmarried

fathers had more limited economic resources and often did not benefit from the same legal guidelines

and protections available to divorcingf athers (Insabella et al., 2003).A major focus of the article was

therefore on identifying the specific personal, interpersonal, and legal issues unmarried fathers

experienced and how their circumstances might differentiate them in important ways from divorcing

fathers.

There are at least three compelling reasons to revisit questions about how the circumstances of

unmarried parents compare to those of divorcing parents. First, the number of nonmarital births has

continued to rise over the last 10 years, with about two out of five births in the United States now

occurring to unmarried women. Recent estimates have shown that a majority of births to mothers

under age 30 are occurring to women who are not married to their child’s father (Wildsmith,

Correspondence: mrw37@cornell.edu; ad659@cornell.edu

FAMILY COURT REVIEW,Vol. 52 No. 4, October 2014 686–703

© 2014 Association of Familyand Conciliation Cour ts

Steward-Streng, & Manlove, 2011). Sociologist Frank Furstenberg (2003, pp. 36–37) has compared

marriage to a “luxury good” for people with higher socioeconomic status, suggesting that “the bottom

third, if not half, of the U.S. population cannot count on entering a stable union.” As families formed

outside of marriage move from being a nontraditional family arrangement to a typical situation in

which children are born, it is now more important than ever for family court professionals to

understand how separated families headed by unmarried parents compare to those headed by formerly

married parents.

Second, recent proposals at the federal level could dramatically increase the number of unmarried

parents establishing legal visitation orders. For example, the Obama administration’s proposed Child

Support and Fatherhood Initiativewould provide funding to increase access and visitation services and

integrate these services into the core of the child support program. As part of this proposal, states

would be required “to include provisions in initial child support orders to address parenting time

responsibilities, to increase resources to support and facilitate non-custodial parents’ access to and

visitation with their children, and to implement domestic violence safeguards” (U.S. Department of

Health and Human Services, 2014). It is estimated that one-quarter of the nation’s children now

participate in the child support program, a large and growing number of whom are living in families

formed outside of marriage (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2011). Because it is

much more likely for unmarried parents to have a child support order than a legal visitation agreement

or parenting plan in place, proposals of this kind could result in major changes for unmarried parents

and the family courts who serve them.

Third, the information available to examine the characteristics and circumstances of unmarried

parents has improved considerablyover the last decade in response to federally funded data collection

efforts. Previous studies often relied on small, nonrandom samples of fathers while others focused

exclusively on mothers. Information from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, a 5,000-

family, 20-city study, has provided the first nationally representative data on unmarried mothers and

fathers in large urban areas. The design of the Fragile Families Study also allows us to make

comparisons between married and unmarried parents who gave birth at the same time and to

investigate important differences among unmarried parents.

BACKGROUND

In the 1990s, economist Ronald Mincy (1994) coined the term “fragile family” to describe a newtype

of family being formed outside of marriage that was at high risk for povertyand relationship dissolution.

Mincy and Pouncy (1999) contrasted families formed outside of marriage with those formed within

marriage and raised important questions about whether policies and interventions designed for

previously married parents would be effective or appropriate for unmarried parents. While Ronald

Mincy was leading an initiative at the Ford Foundation to strengthen fragile families, Irv Garfinkel and

Sara McLanahan were bringing scholarly attention to the problem of unmarried fathers who were

“missing” at high rates from national household surveys. Later that decade, these scholars launched the

Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study to answer important questions related to the conditions,

capabilities, relationships, and outcomes for children in this growing demographic group (see

Garfinkel, McLanahan, & Hanson, 1998; McLanahan, Garfinkel, Mincy, & Donahue, 2010).3

At the time the study began, little was known about the degree to which fragile families resemble

more traditional families headed by married or previously married parents. One of the most striking

early findings reported from the Fragile Families Study was that many children born outside of

marriage were living in two-parent families, with about half of unmarried parents cohabiting at the

time of their child’s birth (McLanahan et al., 2003). Another third were involved in romantic rela-

tionships but were not cohabiting, and about one out of five parents reported no romantic relationship

when their child was born. Although many parents hoped to establish enduring unions, longitudinal

data showed that, within 3 years, more unmarried parents were living apart than together (Waller &

McLanahan, 2005). Within 5 years, nearlytwo-thirds of unmarried parents were living apart and only

16% were married (McLanahan, 2009).

Waller and Dwyer Emory/PARENTSAPART 687