This paper examines the role of non-residential unmarried biological fathers in the upbringing of their children by focusing on father-child contact and child support. The paper uses a nationally representative sample of single mothers to examine father-child contact and provision of child-support by non-residential unmarried biological fathers. The paper looks at various sources of child support for children of single mothers and the context within which father-child contact and child support occurs. The results show that most of the child support for children of single mothers comes from the child's maternal relatives, especially the woman's mother, her father and other relatives. Non-resident unmarried biological fathers were not providing any child support for close to two thirds of women in the sample. More than two-thirds of women in the sample reported that non-resident unmarried fathers were maintaining contact with their children. This study is one of the very few which examines the role played by non-resident unmarried biological fathers in the lives of their children in Botswana.

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