Since Amato and Gilbreth's (1999) meta-analysis of nonresident father involvement and child well-being, nonmarital childbirths and nonresident father involvement both have increased. The unknown implications of such changes motivated the present study, a meta-analytic review of 52 studies of nonresident father involvement and child well-being. Consistent with Amato and Gilbreth, we found that positive forms of involvement were associated with benefits for children, with a small but statistically significant effect size. Amounts of father-child contact and financial provision, however, were not associated with child well-being. Going beyond Amato and Gilbreth, we analyzed the associations between different types of fathering and overall child well-being, and between overall father involvement and different types of child well-being. We found that nonresident father involvement was most strongly associated with children's social well-being and also was associated with children's emotional well-being, academic achievement, and behavioral adjustment. The forms of father involvement most strongly associated with child well-being were involvement in child-related activities, having positive father-child relationships, and engaging in multiple forms of involvement. Moderator analyses demonstrated variation in effect sizes based on both study characteristics and demographic variables. We discuss the implications of these findings for policy and practice.

Although empirical studies have not consistently documented differences in mothering and fathering, differences in conceptualizations, opportunities for enactment, and meanings of mothering and fathering can be clearly demonstrated through family systems as well as feminist theories and qualitative research traditions. We argue that employing the same measures to assess fathering and mothering behaviors will document considerable differences in the involvement of mothers and fathers while masking differences in the roles, meanings, and processes associated with those behaviors. The employment of convergent behavioral measures can profitably occur in conjunction with efforts to identify theoretically rich areas where mothering and fathering are distinct in terms of processes and meanings; this will allow us to document essential differences noted in the lived experiences of family members.

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Given the socially constructed nature of parenthood, frameworks such as identity theory can help explain mothering and fathering behaviors and, particularly, parents' influence on one another's behaviors (referred to here as parental gatekeeping). Burke's (1991, 1997) identity verification model suggests that others encourage or inhibit identity‐relevant behaviors via identity‐behavior‐feedback loops. This article proposes that such dyadic processes can explain parental gatekeeping; by combining empirical literature and propositions from identity theory and adding gender and power as moderating constructs, a midrange model of parental gatekeeping and parental behavior is derived.

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SYNOPSIS Objective The present study looks at predictors that may be associated with father-child relationship quality and whether relationship quality appears to be transmitted across generations. Design This study includes 2,970 U.S. families who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study. Structural equation modeling was used to assess associations between fathers’ relationship with paternal grandfathers (PGF) during their own childhood and when their own children are 1 year old, father involvement at age 1, and child reports of father-child relationship quality at age 9. Results PGF involvement with fathers during childhood was positively associated with the father-PGF relationship at child age 1, which in turn was associated with greater father involvement at age 1. More father involvement at age 1 was associated with child reports of better father-child relationships at age 9. The pathways from PGF involvement during fathers’ childhood and father-PGF relationships at age 1 to father-child relationship quality at age 9 were fully mediated by father involvement at age 1. Conclusions Patterns of father involvement and the quality of father-child relationships tend to be passed down across generations. To ensure active, positive father involvement and its associated benefits for children, parenting interventions should focus promoting positive fathering behaviors to promote positive relationships with children in their own and future generations.

Based on propositions from identity theory, this study used a sample of 1,596 coresident couples from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study to examine whether parents’ fathering role centrality standards and fathers’ status centrality at the time of their child’s birth were associated with mother and father reports of father involvement 1 and 3 years later. Mothers and fathers who rated fathering roles as more important reported greater father involvement at both Years 1 and 3; centrality of the father status was associated with father reports of involvement at both years, and mother-reported involvement at Year 3. Interactions between fathers’ and mothers’ role centrality standards, and between parents’ role centrality standards and father status centrality, were found for mother reports of involvement at Year 3. Implications for research, practice, and theory are discussed.