Non-Residential Fatherhood in France: Socio-Economic Living Conditions and Fathers’ Involvement at Birth

Marieke Heers, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)
Lidia Panico, Institut National d'Études Démographiques (INED)

Non-residential fatherhood is an increasingly important phenomenon. The variation in non-resident fathers’ engagement with their children varies largely: some fathers may not cohabit with the child but are in a relationship with the mother and extensively engaged with the child; at the other end of the scale, non-resident fathers may not have recognized the child and have no presence in their lives. Understanding this variation is of great interest from a public policy perspective. To analyse non-residential fatherhood in infancy, we use data from the French Longitudinal Study of Children (ELFE). At two months, nine percent of French children do not co-reside with their fathers, including two percent of households where the father is in a relationship with the mother but does not live permanently with her. To establish a typology of socio-economic profiles across households of non-cohabiting fathers we use a latent class analysis and describe the father-child contact.