Study paints complex picture of American dads

By Kathy Slobogin
CNN Family and Education Unit

ANN ARBOR, Michigan (CNN) -- About half of U.S. fathers who don't live with their biological children are juggling more than one set of children, according to a new study by a University of Michigan researcher. Nearly a quarter (24 percent) of such fathers have at least three sets of children they are responsible for.

"This work suggests that efforts to engage men in the lives of their non-resident children should pay particular attention to those men who have potentially competing parenting responsibilities," said Pamela J. Smock, one of the authors of the study and a sociologist at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research.

Smock said too often child support policy is based on the assumption that non-resident fathers have only one set of children when in fact many face complex parenting responsibilities.

"It is this situation of being responsible for children who are his, hers and ours that often results in men spending less time and resources with their non-resident children," said Smock.

The study, funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, surveyed 649 families and looked at biological children from former marriages, step children and biological children from new marriages.

Three quarters of divorced men eventually remarry, 70 percent of them within five years, according to the study. The complex parenting responsibilities of many men affect whether they pay child support or visit their children.

Most fathers pay some child support, although 22 percent pay nothing at all, according to the study. About 30 percent of non-resident fathers visit their children once a week. But the study found that such fathers who have no other parental responsibilities are more likely to visit their children, and 85 percent more likely to pay child support for those children, than those with multiple sets of children.

Stepmothers often play an important role in how much support fathers give to their children, according to the study.

"The higher the incomes of spouses or partners, the easier it is for men both to visit and financially support their children," the researchers note.

"These women are all non-resident stepmothers, and possibly other types of parents as well. But they are often treated as being invisible parents, when in fact they appear to matter a great deal."