The Effect of Children’s Interaction With Non-Resident Fathers on Children’s Self-Esteem: Quantitative Analysis of Children in Single Parent Families in Japan

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to examine how children’s relationship with their non-resident father has effects on children’s subjective well-being. Using randomly selected probability sample of junior high school third grade students who live in a single mother household, the effects of the conversation with non-resident father and his supportiveness on children’s self-esteem were quantitively analyzed. Although every conversation and supportiveness item’s non-response rates were over half, the results of the analysis both treating non-response as a dummy variable and removing non-response from the analysis with controlling non-response tendency show the following findings: 1) Conversation of ‘about friends’ with non-resident father was positively related to girl’s self-esteem; 2) the degree of supportiveness of father as ‘he is understanding me’ was positively related to girl’s self-esteem. However, we could not find significant relationships for boys. Non-resident father seems to have a significant role as expressive support provider for girls. These findings suggest that it is probable that keeping interaction with non-resident fathers is beneficial for children.