The twentieth century has been characterized by four important social trends that have fundamentally changed the social cultural context in which children develop: women's increased labor force participation, increased absence of nonresidential fathers in the lives of their children, increased involvement of fathers in intact families, and increased cultural diversity in the U.S.. In this essay, we discuss how these trends are changing the nature of father involvement and family life, and in turn affecting children's and fathers' developmental trajectories. We end with an eye toward the twenty-first century by examining how the children of today will construct their expectations about the roles of fathers and mothers as they become the parents of tomorrow. This life-span approach to fatherhood considers the broader sociohistorical context in which fatherhood develops, and emphasizes the urgent need to consider mothers, fathers, and family structure in future research as we seek to understand and model the effects of parenting on children's development.

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.

ࡗ How American Children Spend Their TimeWe often assume that how children spend their time affects their cognitive and social development. Much of our language refers to children's behavior in terms of time-whether they spend too little time studying, reading, or helping around the house or too much time watching television and hanging out with friends. Despite the use of language in which time is the accepted cultural medium for communicating about children's ac-

ࡗ Are All Dads Equal? Biology Versus Marriage as a Basis for Paternal InvestmentThe stepfather relationship provides a source of potential conflict in remarriage families, because the mother and partner may have different interests in the well-being of children from a prior union. Using three different theoretical perspectives-biology, sociology, and selection-this paper examines the engagement, availability, participation, and warmth of residential fathers in married biological parent, unmarried biological parent, married stepparent, and cohabiting father families. The data come from 2,531 children and their parents who were interviewed during the 1997 wave of the Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics. Biology explains less of father involvement than anticipated once differences between fathers are controlled. Marriage continues to differentiate paternal investment levels, as do age of child and financial responsibility to nonresidential children.As a result of the rise in out-of-wedlock childbearing, divorce, and remarriage in the last quarter of the 20th century, an increasing proportion of

This article examines the contribution of economic circumstances, neighborhood context, and cultural factors to explaining race/ethnic differences in fathering in two-parent families. Data come from the 1997 Child Development Supplement to the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative sample of children younger than age 13. Black children’s fathers exhibit less warmth but monitor their children more, Hispanic fathers monitor their children less, and both minority groups exhibit more responsibility for child rearing than White fathers. Economic circumstances contribute to differences in paternal engagement and control, and neighborhood factors contribute to differences in warmth and responsibility. Cultural factors, such as intergenerational fathering and gender-role attitudes, contribute to explaining differences from Whites in control and responsibility on the part of both Blacks and Hispanics.