Where’s the daddy?

Referring to UK datasets, researchers have written about “a growing requirement for new statistics that reflect the complexity of ‘family’ relationships including relationships outside each household” (Wilson, 2010, p57) and that “there are revolving doors to family life with many parents and children living together only some of the time” (Kiernan, 2006, p666). Our work relates to an international literature on how social surveys can take into account individuals living at more than one address, and couple and family relationships across households (Baxter, Edwards and Maguire, 2012; Brown and Manning, 2012; Callister and Birks, 2006; Manning, 2015; Noël-Miller, 2013; Qu and Weston, 2005; Schmeeckle et al, 2006; Stewart, 2001; Stykes, Manning and Brown, 2013; Toulemon and Pennec, 2010).

Limitations in the identification of so-called ‘non-resident’ fathers, as well as limitations in the differentiation of resident birth fathers and stepfathers in major European harmonised datasets, restrict the potential for evidence-based social policy (Sigle-Rushton et al., 2013). Failing to identify and collect data about a range of fathers also limits analyses of UK data. Official Statistics publications give figures for families which include resident dependent children, focusing on ‘family type’ rather than on the specific parental status of mothers and fathers (ONS, 2014a; ONS, 2014b; ONS, 2015a). Little is known about demographic trends in the numbers of fathers of dependent children who do not primarily reside with them (an estimated 5% of UK men aged 16-64 in 2009-11: Poole et al, 2016). In particular, fathers who never, or only briefly, lived in the same household with their infant and their infant’s mother have been called “largely statistically invisible” (Kiernan, 2016). A welcome innovation is that the Census for England and Wales introduced questions on second addresses in 2011 (ONS, 2010a; ONS, 2014c).

The relationship categories we use in our review (birth/biological, adoptive and ‘social’ parents such as stepparents), our ‘co-residence’ typology (see below) and some of the questionnaire and data collection issues that we discuss in this working paper apply to mothers as well as to fathers. However, given the gendered aspects of contemporary family life in the UK, the issues apply more often to fathers. Fathers are more likely to fall into categories such as resident step-parents, full-time non-resident birth parents (of dependent children), parents working away or in prison, and parents who are resident part-time with their children (for example for one or two nights per week due perhaps to parental separation, working away, or cohabiting part-time with their child’s mother).