Children's Time With Fathers in Intact Families

Abstract

This paper uses the Panel Study of Income Dynamics to examine children's involvement with their fathers in intact families as measured through time spent together. Our findings suggest that although mothers still shoulder the lion's share of the parenting, fathers' involvement relative to that of mothers appears to be on the increase. A ''new father'' role is emerging on weekends in intact families. Different determinants of fathers' involvement were found on weekdays and on weekends. Fathers' wages and work hours have a negative relationship with the time they spend with a child on weekdays, but not on weekends.Mothers' work hours have no effect on children's time with fathers. On weekends, Black fathers were found to be less involved and Latino fathers more involved with their children than are White fathers. The weekday-weekend differential suggests that a simple gender inequality theory is not sufficient in explaining the dynamics of household division of labor in today's American families.

What Gets Dad Involved? A Longitudinal Study of Change in Parental Child Caregiving Involvement.

“…This proportion is similar to, or slightly higher than (for fathers' proportion of child care), other reports in the literature; estimates vary depending on how involvement in child care is measured (Pleck, 1997;Yeung et al, 2001). …”

“…For instance, the time-diary study mentioned above found that whereas older children spend less time with their fathers, the level of involvement with fathers relative to mothers increases with child age (Yeung et al, 2001). Fathers may feel more comfortable with older children who do not require as many gendered caregiving activities, such as diapering and bathing, as compared with younger children (Deutsch, Lussier, & Servis, 1993).…”

“…Fathers may feel more comfortable with older children who do not require as many gendered caregiving activities, such as diapering and bathing, as compared with younger children (Deutsch, Lussier, & Servis, 1993). When fathers do interact with young children, they tend to engage in more playful social interactions than in practical caretaking tasks (e.g., Bailey, 1994;Yeung et al, 2001). On the basis of these findings and observations, there may be a positive upward slope of fathers' proportion of perceived caregiving involvement over time among fathers who are initially assessed when there are younger children in the family, in comparison with the relative plateau that may characterize the slope of fathers' proportional involvement when there are exclusively older resident children.…”

“…For example, a large-sample diary study found that between the ages of 3 and 12 years, children spend less and less time with their fathers in play and companionship activities. However, fathers spend more time with older boys in these types of activities (Yeung, Sandberg, Davis-Kean, & Hofferth, 2001). In contrast, on the basis of available cross-sectional data, there does not appear to be a basis for expecting an interaction between child gender and age in predicting changes in maternal caregiving involvement.…”

Choosing Single Motherhood?

“…Based on stereotypes of what mothering and fathering entail, it has been presumed that children need both a mother and father for appropriate psychological and sex-role development. Studies have shown that mothers spend more time interacting with children in a nurturing and care-giving role whilst fathering involves more breadwinning, stereotypically masculine tasks and play with children (Yeung 2001;Hawkins et al 2006;Lamb 2010). Thus the 'essential father' theory has evolved: boys need fathers to inhibit antisocial behaviour and develop appropriate masculine identities and girls need fathers to help deter promiscuity, teen pregnancy and substance abuse (Blankenhorn 1995;Popenoe 1996).…”