Spending time with his kids: Effects of family structure on fathers' and children's lives

Using data from the National Survey of Families and Households, we investigate how fathers spend time with their children, what encourages them to no this, and the effects of fathers' time on children's academic achievement. We pay particular attention to the type of family structure that resident fathers and children share, and we find this to have an influence on both the activities that fathers engage in with their children and on children's grades. Both family structure and shared activities between fathers and their children are associated with children's academic achievement, but father's time does not appear to mediate the effects of family structure on children's grades.