The specific aim of the project is to enhance our understanding of male fertility, by studying the timing of and circumstances affecting subsequent (second and higher parity) births among men who are fathers.  We examine six outcomes: the completed number of children born, as well as births that are closely-spaced, unintended and/or unwanted births, births outside of marriage, births in a high-conflict relationship, and births to multiple partners.

            The project incorporates an ecological and life-course perspective, which posits that subsequent male fertility behaviors are influenced by factors from multiple domains of men’s lives, including characteristics of individuals, their families, their partners, their children, their communities, and social policies.

            The four stages of the project will produce important information about: the process of childbearing among males compared with females (Stage 1); the factors influencing subsequent fertility among fathers, with a particular focus on socioeconomic status, demographic and policy characteristics (Stage 2), as well as on the role of men's relationships with their partners and children (Stage 3); and the occurrence of multiple simultaneous positive or negative fatherhood outcomes (Stage 4).

            We use four data files for different components of the analyses, including the National Survey of Family Growth (2002), the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth--1979 cohort, and the father surveys from the Fragile Family and Child Well-Being Study, and the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study--Birth Cohort.  Analyses include discrete-time event history analyses to model the transition to a subsequent birth and to compare the transition to births in different circumstances, as well as logit and multinomial logit analyses to assess the influence of multiple domains on the different circumstances of subsequent fatherhood.

Analyses are conducted separately among critical sub-populations, including bivariate and multivariate comparisons by gender and by father's race/ethnicity, age, parity, socioeconomic status, and historical time period.  We will compare final multivariate models of subsequent parenthood for males and females.  Both the research and policy communities will benefit from empirical research designed to expand our understanding of family building from the male perspective.