College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Iowa State University

Away from home

Studies by sociology's Susan Stewart look at non-custodial parents.
Susan Stewart herself comes from a single-parent household.

But that in itself wasn’t the motivating factor in her research efforts which focus specifically on living arrangements, union formation, fertility, parent-child relationships and child well-being.

"I was motivated by my adviser in grad school," the assistant professor of sociology says. "There are lots of implication of divorce, especially when about half of all first marriages end in divorce."

Stewart is currently examining African American non-resident fathers and their children in a two-year, $100,000 grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH). Utilizing the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, she is examining the non-resident parental habits of young men who were first interviewed in 1979 and have been interviewed every two years since then.

The study tracks information such as educational levels, employment history and family formation of men who are now 35-43 years of age.

"This dataset looks at every aspect of their lives," Stewart says. "The data also includes information on the men’s involvement with their children."

Stewart says that little research has been conducted into the non-residential parenting of African American men. Previous studies focused primarily on white middle-class families.

That seems unusual particularly when you look at the number of African American children (almost two-thirds in the U.S.) who will have a non-resident father at some point in their childhood, substantially more than white children and their fathers (about one-half in the U.S.)

One of the main reasons for the high rate of non-resident fatherhood among African Americans is that two-thirds of African American children are born to unmarried mothers, compared to 22% of white children.

"The previous studies in this area have fallen into either small scale studies of poor black fathers or superficial comparisons of black and white non-residential fathers that do not account for the different circumstances of black men," Stewart said.

Stewart's initial findings indicate that African American family life is unique in a lot of different ways including out-of-wedlock children, the father's financial involvement, extended families and religion.

"When we look at the involvement of African American fathers with their children we should note that fathers don't necessarily work the same 9 to 5 hours that white parents typically do," she said. "But African American men tend to offer more moral guidance to their children and make sure that religion is part of their children's lives.

"The popular media is not getting the full story out about African American fathers," Stewart continued. "They look like bad fathers if they don't pay child support, but that doesn't look at the reasons why that is."

The second half of Stewart's NIH funded project looks at the child's well-being including academic success, delinquency and sexual activity.

"I hope to be able to inform lawmakers (who develop policy to help men stay connected with their children) that they have to know why it is these populations aren't staying involved with their children," she said. "We know from previous studies that it is important that white children maintain a connection with their non-resident fathers for their own well-being.

"What I am going to find out is whether this is the same for African American children."

In addition to this study, Stewart is also investigating parental involvement and well-being among children with non-resident parents, comparing children who have absent mothers, absent fathers and two absent parents. This research is supported with funding from the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.

Using data from the National Survey of America's Families, Stewart has determined that non-resident mothers stay more involved in their children's lives than non-resident fathers, regardless of racial background.

However non-resident fathers typically contribute more in financial support to their children than non-resident mothers.