ABSTRACT
The proportion of children born to unmarried parents has risen dramatically in the past 40 years, with fully one third of births now occurring outside of marriage; the proportions are even higher among minority populations-42% among Hispanics and 69% among African Americans (Ventura & Bachrach, 2000). The rise in the fraction of nonmarital births, along with demographic changes in marriage and divorce, has yielded a growing group of “fragile families”—unmarried parents who are raising their children together, Such families are deemed fragile because of the multiple risks associated with nonmarital childbearing (including poverty) and the vulnerability of the parents’ relationship. New research shows that more than four fifths of unmarried couples are in a romantic relationship-and just under half are living together-at the time of their child’s birth, indicating that they may be more “familylike” than typically perceived (McLanahan, Garfinkel, Reichman, & Teitler, 2001). To understand how unmarried-parent families may differ from more traditional families and the consequences for children, it is important to examine the nature of fathering across various types of fragile families.
