Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

The project aimed to investigate the circumstances of non resident fathers in Britain. This study, which consisted of a sample survey and two qualitative surveys of sub-samples, covered the socio-economic circumstances, age, employment, income, marital status, living arrangements and housing (only the sample survey is held at the Data Archive). The study explored respondents' physical, financial and affective relationships with their former partner and non resident children, and also their feelings about their rights and responsibilities as fathers and the opportunities and constraints surrounding their relationship. The study also sought to explain respondents' level of contact with their children and the odds of paying child support in relation to their circumstances and present relationships.
Main Topics:

The dataset contains 1650 cases of men identified by NOP/OPCS Omnibus surveys as fathers with non resident dependent children. 619 cases contain the interview responses of those fathers agreeing to participate in the survey of non resident fathers. The Omnibus data contains information about the non resident fathers. It was used to establish if the 619 fathers interviewed in the follow-up survey were a representative sample of the 1650 non resident fathers identified. It was necessary to weight the survey sample using the Omnibus data.

The data includes details of respondent's household composition, current partnerships, past marital history, children, child care, access to children, relationships with children, child and spousal maintenance, informal child support, financial settlements, debt, last partner's circumstances, contact with Child Support Agency. Demographic data includes employment, partners' employment, housing and housing costs, income, social security benefits, kinship, qualifications, health status.