Single Dads Involved With Their Children More Likely to Form New Relationships
March 5, 2003
In the movie "About a Boy," Hugh Grant pretends to have a son in order to attract a woman.
That strategy is right on target, according to a study by a sociologist at the University of Richmond. Having children does help single men form new relationships - but only if they are involved with their children and don't live with them.
Susan Stewart, assistant professor of sociology and anthropology, wrote in the February 2003 Journal of Marriage and Family that men who reported visiting their nonresident children were more likely than other men to be involved in a marriage or live-in relationship a few years later.
The same is not true for women. "Women's obligations to children from prior relationships represent an emotional and financial drain that lowers their chances of meeting new people and forming a relationship," Stewart said.
Stewart and colleagues from Bowling Green State University and the University of Michigan collaborated on the project, which analyzed data from the National Survey of Families and Households.
"It's possible that men who are active parents may be viewed as good fathers, enhancing their attractiveness to potential mates," Stewart said. "They also might be predisposed toward family life, leading them to commitment more quickly than other men."
Single men living with their children do not fare as well, Stewart said. A possible reason is that "living with or marrying men who have custodial responsibility for their children may lead to stepmotherhood-a commitment many women are not willing to make," she explained.
Stewart's findings were based on surveys of 1,226 men conducted in 1987-88 and again in 1992-94. Sixty percent of those who said in the first survey they had nonresident children had formed a union by the time of the second survey, with most living with-rather than marrying- their mate. They were 30 percent more likely to have formed a union than childless single men.
Further, Stewart found that men who were not involved with their children by either visiting or providing support were no more likely than other men to form relationships by the time of the second survey. "Fathers who visit their nonresident children at least monthly have over three times the chance of forming a new union than fathers who do not visit their children," she said.
But their unions tend to be live-in relationships rather than marriage. "It seems that cohabitation is more compatible than marriage, at least initially, with involved nonresident fathers' social roles," says Stewart. These men "are already living outside of a traditional family model, suggesting that informal unions would perhaps be more acceptable to them than to childless men."