Jessica Miner

The study of father involvement is a fairly new trend in research. Lamb (2000) suggested that we could define father involvement in behavior terms. These behaviors include: engagement, accessibility, and responsibility (Lamb, 2000). Fathers who are positively and behaviorally participating in these three components have, by definition, high involvement with their children. With increasing attention to the study of fathers, research has found that father involvement is a critical and unique element in the development of children: for example, higher levels of involvement influences early cognitive, language, emotional, and social development (Roggman, Boyce, Cook, Christiansen, & Jones, 2004). It is therefore important to find the prominent factors that contribute to father involvement. There have been numerous studies that have attempted to examine the kinds of factors that influence the levels to which fathers become involved in the lives of their children (Lamb, 2000). These factors include the age of the child, gender of child, the education of the father, and time fathers spend in work outside the home.

Additionally, researchers have sought to understand if couple relationships have an impact on his involvement. Specifically, some researchers (Lee & Doherty, 2007) have suggested that the quality of the marital or couple relationship is directly tied to men’s willingness or motivation to become involved in the lives of their children. These researchers suggest that when there is high marital conflict, fathers will be less likely to be involved in children’s lives. However, this study and most like it have looked only at father-child-mother situations within which the couple was in therapy or the child was in some kind of situational distress (such as school problems or delinquency).

The goal of my research is to determine if there is a relationship between father involvement and marital quality. Previous studies to determine the effect of martial quality on father involvement have resulted in mixed findings. Some studies have found a positive correlation between marital quality and father involvement, while other studies show a negative correlation. Still some studies find no relationship between marital quality and father involvement (Lee & Doherty, 2007). These mixed results attest to the complexity of familial relationships. However, we expect to find that marital quality will have a positive effect on father involvement because we believe that a man who feels comfortable and accepted in the home will feel more competent as a father and will be more likely to engage with his children. It is the hypothesis of this study that as the positive value of these important values that make up our Marital Quality scale (commitment, forgiveness, sacrifice, etc.) increase, father involvement will also increase.

The data to answer this question are taken from the Flourishing Families Project (FFP) at Brigham Young University. The FFP is an ongoing, longitudinal study involving 349 participating families with two parents and a target child between the ages of 10 and 14. This is a non-clinical larger community based sample. The families involved in the FFP were recruited using a national telephone survey database (Polk Directories/InfoUSA). Target families were selected if they had a Fifth grade child. In home interviews were conducted consisting of a battery of self-administered questionnaires and video-taped interactions (not used here).

Father involvement was assessed using an 8-item measure of behavioral involvement taken as an extension from the Inventory of Father Involvement (Hawkins, Bradford, Palkovitz, Christiansen, & Day, 2002). Fathers reported on the frequency of their own behavioral involvement on a 5-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 5 (very often) (e.g., “How often do you help your child with homework?”). Children also took the Inventory of Father Involvement and rated their fathers on the same scale. Higher scores represent higher involvement.

Our measures of marital quality were taken from the following: a) commitment, b) forgiveness, c) sacrifice, d) relational aggression and e) power imbalance. It was assessed using a modified version of the Norton Quality Marriage scale (Norton, 1983). The responses were based on a 6-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very strongly disagree) to 6 (very strongly agree). Each partner answered 5 questions including, “My relationship with my partner makes me happy.” Higher scores indicate higher perceived marital quality. Participants also responded to a 10-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (very unhappy) to 10 (perfectly happy) to indicate their degree of happiness in the relationship.

Our study demonstrated that marital quality initially had a significant effect on father involvement. However, after controlling for attachment, relational aggression, mother involvement, commitment, conflict, and education, only relational aggression and mother involvement remain as specific, influential factors of father involvement. This may be because marital quality is a simple measure and too general in nature to hold together as a strong factor. A factor such as relational aggression, on the other hand, is a more specific measure and a variable such as father involvement may therefore be more responsive to it. Also, it is possible to assume that relational aggression will have an effect on marital quality, making marital quality indirectly related to father involvement.

Relational aggression is negatively and significantly related to father involvement. As relational aggression in a couple increases, it is more likely for the father to become less accessible to, less engaged with, and take less responsibility for his children. This suggests that, rather than concerning ourselves about the broad concept of marital quality and its relationship with father involvement, it would be better to focus on a few key elements of marital quality that have a more direct effect. Further research should examine more clearly other potential factors, such as the role of conflict, aggression, power imbalance, and coercion in relationships to more fully understand the dynamics of men’s involvement in the lives of their children.

References

• Lamb, M. E. (2000). The history of research on father involvement: An overview. In H. E. Peters & R. D. Day (Ed.), Fatherhood: Research, Interventions and Policies (pp. 23-42). The Haworth Press.
• Lee, C. S., & Doherty, W. J. (2007). Marital satisfaction and father involvement during the transitions to parenthood. Fathering, 5(2), 75-96.
• Marsiglio, W., Amato, P., Day, R. D., & Lamb, M. E. (2000). Scholarship on fatherhood in the 1990s and beyond. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 62(4), 1173-1191
• Roggman, L. A., Boyce, L. K., Cook, G. A., Christiansen, K., & Jones, D. (2004). Playing with daddy: Social toy play, Early Head Start, and developmental outcomes. Fathering, 2(1), 83-108.