Putting fathers back in the picture: Parental activities and children's adult outcomes

Drawing on over a quarter of a century of Panel Study of Income Dynamics data, this paper examines links between childhood home environment las reported by fathers during those childhood years) and children's outcomes in early adulthood. The emphasis is on the role of fathers and the unique contribution of their activities and characteristics to children's development, measured in terms of the children's completed schooling, wage rates, and nonmarital childbearing in early adulthood. The paper shows that fathers' abilities add substantial predictive power to models based on maternal characteristics. Fathers' church attendance and the precautionary actions of parents are also strong predictors of children's adult outcomes, although differentially so fur sons and daughters.