Gender-Based Attitudes and Father Involvement: Amount, Assessment, and Desires for More

In this article, structural equation modeling is used to examine direct and indirect paths between gender-based attitudes, how much fathers were involved in their children’s lives, how much more or less they would have liked to have been involved, and their perceptions of how good of a job they did as a father. Qualitative data are used to help contextualize the quantitative data. Sixty-eight fathers of emerging adults participated. As hypothesized, more egalitarian attitudes are associated with more involvement, which is in turn related to more favorable perceptions of how good of a job they think they did as a father. Less egalitarian attitudes are associated with less involvement, which is in turn related to fathers reporting that they would have liked to have been more involved in their children’s lives.