Legal and Social Ties between Children and Cohabiting Fathers

The article examines whether legal ties between the members in the nuclear family affect the father-child relationship after domestic breakup. Data were taken from a sample of 419 younger Danish children from previous marital unions, and consensual unions with either sole or joint legal custody before family dissolution. The study found no evidence that civil status as a single factor could explain possible differences in the post-separation organization of parenting, but a sole legal custody arrangement from the child's birth may disfavour cohabiting fathers as future residential parents. The results further suggested that father's potential as breadwinner together with his involvement in preseparation childcare care constitutive elements of modern fatherhood.