Father Involvement and Identity: A Theoretical Examination
In light of two current, widespread, and potentially conflicting societal expectations for U.S. fathers, that they be highly involved in direct child rearing and that they provide financially for their children, a revised and integrated formulation of identity theory was developed and assessed as a guide to understanding fathers' involvement in care giving activities and responsibilities with their own children. Building on the work of Stryker (1980, 1987) it was hypothesized that commitment would impact fathers' care giver identity, and that care giver identity would predict father involvement. Following Burke and Reitzes (1992) it was hypothesized that commitment would directly influence fathers' involvement. Finally, it was hypothesized that commitment would explain more unique variance on father involvement than care giver identity. Participants were 89 fathers in mostly white, middle class, two parent, co-residential families with a target child between age 3 and 5. During home interviews fathers reported the amount of time spent accessible to and/or interacting with their child on the most recent workday and non-workday. Fathers and mothers jointly assessed fathers' responsibility for basic care giving tasks. Fathers also completed questionnaires to assess their care giver identity and level of affective and interactional commitment. Findings suggest that commitment did impact care giver identity, which in turn predicted behavior. Commitment also directly predicted father involvement. Finally, more variance on father involvement was explained by commitment than care giver identity. Results have implications for the development of parent education programs and policies to facilitate increased father involvement in care giving and other aspects of parenting.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign