Nonresident Fathers

The purpose of this article was to research the relationship between nonresident fathers and their involvement with their offspring, as well as the behavior that adolescents exhibit when their fathers are nonresidential by excessive cigarette smoking and this research was conducted with the help of using a nationally representative longitudinal dataset. It was hypothesized by the authors of the article that the lower the involvement of nonresidential fathers, the higher the risk of developing health damaging behaviors, especially among females. The authors original hypothesis was supported, concluding that if nonresidential fathers are not involved in their children’s lives, the higher risk of adolescents participating in the use of intense
cigarette smoking.
Discussion
The data that was used for this study came from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health while using the first 3 waves.
It is survey for U.S. adolescents in 132 schools nationwide for students enrolled in grades from year 7 to 12 in 1994-1995 (Wave I), follow-up surveys in 1996 (Wave II), 2001-2002 (Wave III). An unusual feature of Add Health is that it not only collects extensive information on adolescents’ smoking behavior but it also gathers information on the characteristics on adolescents’ relationship with their nonresidential father and their conditions of involvement with their offspring. Sample for the analysis included all individuals that were younger than the age of 18 in Wave II who were interviewed in all of the 3 waves of the study. Adolescents were asked how close they were to their nonresidential fathers, ranging from 1 (not close at all) to 5 (extremely close), how often they had stayed overnight with him during the past year, from 0 (not at all) to 5 (more than once a week), and a series of nine questions about whether they had participated in various outgoing activities such as shopping, watching a movie, or working on a school assignment with their nonresidential father (1 = yes, 0 = no). These measures were then summed and standardized (to have a mean of 0 and a standard deviation of 1) to help create a measurement of nonresidential father involvement. There were many controls included in this study such as demographic
characteristics, if they had availability to cigarettes, etc. Adolescent smoking indicators came from Wave II and Wave III while the relationship with nonresidential fathers came from Wave I. It was estimated that a one-standard deviation increase in nonresidential father involvement is associated with 14% decline in the odds of an adolescent becoming a smoker. Stratifying the estimates by gender, it appears to be approximately the same smoking participation for both adolescent genders. Yet, for intensity measure the estimates are slightly larger for girls.