Thesis advisor: Shawn McGuffey / This paper provides a look into the lives of 13 stay-at-home fathers. This qualitative, exploratory study conducted in-depth interviews with 13 men who defined themselves as stay-at-home fathers. Respondents were obtained through convenience sampling. Fathers were from several major metropolitan U.S. cities, from New York, Los Angeles, Boston, to Washington, D.C. All respondents were white, middle- to upper-middle class males. This study aims to analyze gender through the theories of “doing gender” (West and Zimmerman, 1987) and structuralism (Risman, 1998). This paper argues that what dictates an individual to become a successful parent is not sex or a biological desire, but structural and situational demands. Due to financial reasons and time availability, these men were able to commit the time and energy needed to become a full-time parent. This paper also analyzes the different ways in which men construct masculinity when taking on an untraditional role. Stay-at-home fathers emphasize physical activity, sports, and a lack of emotional connection as a way of maintaining and constructing masculinity. This paper concludes that gender is not only socially constructed, but also that gender is constructed within the structural demands of the situation. Although stay-at-home fathers still find ways to construct masculinity, their stories demonstrate that they are just as capable as women to rise up to the challenges of full-time parenting. In conclusion, this study argues that good parenting knows no gender, and that government policies and programs should advocate for all different family structures. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Sociology Honors Program. / Discipline: Sociology.

Thesis advisor: Donald Cox / This dissertation contains three essays. It provides analysis on issues concerning about family economics. The first essay investigates issues about intergenerational transfer in China. Does parental support in China respond to low income of the elderly? Intergenerational transfers from adult children to their parents are thought to contribute a significant portion of old-age support in China. With a fast growing elder population and an increasing old-age dependency ratio, it is important to understand these transfers. This study investigates the determining factors of intergenerational transfers in China. This line of research is still lacking due to the scarcity of detailed household data. Past studies on private transfers in China could not differentiate between intergenerational versus intragenerational transfers. Using pilot data from the newly released China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS), I found that around half of the sampled households received transfers from adult children and the amount of transfer is as much as two-thirds of household income per capita. Data also showed that poorer households are more likely to receive transfers. Data suggested that people in the poor province (Gansu) have a higher degree of dependence on adult children, as the source of providing old-age support and living arrangement. Seeing how private transfers are large, widespread, and responsive to income, the benefits from instituting appropriate public policy would likely accrue in part to younger generations by lessening their burden of familial support. The second essay examines the effect of social father on the well-being of out-of-wedlock children. Social fathers, defined as stepfathers or unrelated cohabiting romantic partners of biological mothers, have become more widespread as a result of the increasing out-of-wedlock childbearing. With more young children living with social fathers, it is important to understand the effect of social fathers on the well-being of children. Previous research focused more on such effect on older children or adolescents. Using data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS), I find that children with social fathers scored around three points less in a cognitive ability test than children living only with biological mothers. I used the propensity score matching method to address the selection issue for which the child's mother self-selected into having a new partner. Social fathers will be more common because of the widespread of non-marital births. Any negative effect caused by the social fathers will affect a large portion of child population. The third essay evaluates the association between the timing of parenthood and the timing of retirement. Is late parenting associated with late retirement? The trend of parenthood timing is under drastic change. The birth rate for women aged 30-34 rose from 52.3 births per 1000 women in 1975 to 96.5 births per 1000 women in 2010 while the birth rate for women aged 20-24 went down from 113 births to 90 births per 1000 women during the same period. The children may still be very young when their parents enter their retirement age. In the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), 20% of respondents' children lived with them while nearly 30% of these children were below 18 years of age. Despite the potential importance of this issue, economists have not done much research on it. Using the HRS, this study found that parents who have their first child before or at age 30 retire earlier than parents who have their first child after age 30. This positive association holds for different sub-groups of the sample. With significant portion of people delaying their parenthood and a large group of people entering their retiring age, it is very important for policy makers and economists to understand how the timing of parenthood associates with the timing of retirement. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics.

Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / 2031-01-01

Attitudes of 74 first-time fathers were studied as they varied vi by childbirth preparation and participation. A 50-variable questionnaire was used to tap fathers' attitudes towards their marital relationship and partner, their infants, themselves as fathers, and the pregnancy/childbirth experience . Fathers agreed on being elated with fatherhood, wanting tactile, verbal, and extended home contact with their infants, planning on a partnership in parenting, and seeing their marriage at a high point. They saw pregnancy as a time of stress and adjustment and felt father participation was important. Their attitudes varied most on wife's performance and their own helpfulness through labor and delivery. The variance and the numerous relationships of the 50 variables were consolidated through factor analysis. 2 x 2 ANOVA on eight factors revealed the effects of preparation and participation. It was found that participation increases the father's respect for his wife, gives him more purpose in the childbirth, and increases his elation at becoming a father. The prepared and participating father realized the importance and responsibili ty of his ~articipation and perceived his infant as being perfect. A trend was seen between preparation and concerns with the infant time involvement, the pleasure with the news of pregnancy. and a desire to go through the childbirth experience again. Herit was also given to a lack of preparation and participation through the results of analysis on Factor II--The triad. The nonprepared nonparticipating fathers saw the marriage a t a high point, showed tactile and visual engrossment, and planned on a parenting partnership more than any other group of fathers in the sample.

This study used family systems theory as a lens to examine fathers' relationships with young adolescent children as it relates to the areas of time spent together, communication between generations, and paternal satisfaction in raising an early adolescent child. Similarities and differences of scores on the Parent Success Indicator were examined for 191 Caucasian American (n=110) and African American (n=81) fathers of 10- to 14-year-old-children. Results showed that increased amounts of time that fathers report spending with children was significantly associated with paternal satisfaction, communication between generations, fathers' use of time, parental frustration, and parental teaching. Implications for training and family therapy involving fathers were also explored.

Studies of nonresident fathers have largely neglected the influence of their personality on their contact and involvement with children. The present two-stage study, using quantitative and qualitative data collection methods, undertook to investigate the extent to which selected personality characteristics influenced nonresident fathers� continued engagement with children. The study initially collected demographic and personal data from two hundred and sixty nonresident fathers throughout Australia. This first stage of data collection focussed on fathers� experience of the separation and their subsequent frequency and level of contact and their level of involvement with children. It included several multi-item variables, which measured nonresident fathers� relationships with former partners and children, their adjustment to their new parental role, their role satisfaction and role strain. It also included measures of fatherhood salience, nonresident fathers� parental authority within the separated family, their satisfaction with that authority, their attitude to child support and their perception of resident mothers� attitude to contact. It also administered abridged Sensitivity and Impulsivity scales devised by Eysenck (1969). At the second stage of the study, one hundred and thirty-five of these fathers participated in an interview. One hundred and twenty of them completed a personality questionnaire, which measured scores on the four folk scales of Responsibility, Socialization, Self-control and Good Impression, taken from the California Psychological Inventory. The study found Socialization was the only selected personality characteristic to be significantly associated with nonresident fathers� engagement with children. All four folk scales were positively correlated with nonresident fathers� role adjustment, which was significantly associated with nonresident fathers� contact and was part of the model best predicting their involvement with children. Results showed that nonresident fathers� scores on the Sensitivity measure were negatively associated with role adjustment. Most nonresident fathers in the study had frequent contact with children but limited involvement with them. They reported having little scope to share in parental decision making or to be involved in children�s schooling. The study found fatherhood salience, role adjustment, parental authority and attitude to child support to be positively associated with engagement. It showed interparental hostility, interparental conflict and nonresident fathers� role strain to be negatively correlated with engagement. The study also found that dissatisfaction with parental authority within the separated family, role strain and a negative attitude to child support were associated with ongoing interparental hostility. Qualitative data confirmed nonresident fathers� common experience of being marginalised within the family. They also revealed that many participants went to great lengths to maintain some parental relevancy for their children, despite social and legal systems tending to impede them from meeting parental responsibilities and caring for their children.

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a child-focused, school-delivered physical activity program on daily steps of children and their paternal parent, and to evaluate the acceptability to teachers of the 'Walk your Dad' program. A pre-test, post-test experimental/control groups design was used. The sample, recruited from Eltham College of Education, consisted of 60 children aged 10- to 13-years and 48 paternal parents aged 35- to 64-years. Physical activity levels were assessed over a 6-day period using New Lifestyles pedometers, 1-week prior to and 1-week after the intervention. The 12-week intervention consisted of two cross curriculum homework activities per week delivered to children by their classroom teacher, focusing on increasing physical activity behaviours of children and their paternal parent. Following cleaning and imputation, data were analysed using descriptive statistics and repeated measures ANOVA. Teachers (n=2) of intervention group participants independently completed a survey on the acceptability of the program in the week following its completion. Mean weekend steps for children in the intervention group increased from 15,436 +/- 7,680 at pre-test to 19,575 +/- 10,537 at post-test, while among control group children steps decreased from 17,981 +/- 6,552 to 17,278 +/- 6,769. On weekdays (4-days), mean steps for children in the intervention group increased from 46,090 +/- 16,001 to 48,760 +/- 13,648, while among control group children, steps decreased from 46,907 +/- 9,912 to 43,717 +/- 10,255. Mean weekend steps for paternal parents in the intervention group increased from 15,116 +/- 5,640 to 17,473 +/- 6,836, while among control group paternal parents steps decreased from 18,239 +/- 8,345 to 17,836 +/- 6,855. On weekdays (four days) mean steps for paternal parents in the intervention group increased from 31,141 +/- 13,246 to 31,507 +/- 13,132 while among control group paternal parents steps decreased from 34,942 +/- 11,109 to 32,502 +/- 12,602. Repeated measures ANOVA analyses revealed that on weekends for children there were significant differenc es between pre- and post-test (p less than.000), between pre- and post-test for boys and girls (p less than.000), and between boys, girls, intervention and control class (p =.01) at post-test. On weekdays for children there was a significant difference between intervention and control class at post-test (p =.01). Results for paternal parents indicated that there was a significant difference on weekends between pre- and post-test (p less than.000) and on weekdays there was a significant difference between intervention and control class at post-test (p =.05). Both intervention class teachers had consistent views about the program. The findings suggest that during the period of research and among this group, the intervention had a positive effect on weekend step behaviour of girls and weekday step behaviour of girls, boys and their paternal parents. The process evaluation revealed some aspects of the program may require modification.

Thesis (M. Div.)--Emmanuel School of Religion, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 43-48).

Despite the high prevalence of father-perpetrated maltreatment, relatively little empirical attention has been given to men who abuse and neglect their children (Dubowitz, 2006, 2009; Haskett, Marziano, & Dover, 1996). To further our understanding, the current dissertation explored father-child relational dynamics that underlie risk for child maltreatment. In the first study, data from a sample of 121 maltreating fathers were used to discern differential patterns of parenting dynamics using both theoretical and statistical approaches to classification. It was hypothesized that fathers would show problems predominantly in one of five areas: emotional unavailability; negative attribution, harshness, and rejection; developmentally inappropriate interaction; poor psychological boundaries; and exposure of a child to hostile inter-parental relations. Contrary to expectation, little support was obtained for the predominant problem hypothesis. Although methodological limitations may play a role, results indicated that men were more clearly differentiated by the degree of severity evidenced across their problematic parent-child interactions, than by differences in the specific pattern of problems they experienced. An interesting finding from Study 1 was that increasingly severe relational problems were associated with a misprioritization of parent and child needs. Study 2 further explored this dynamic by revising and re-evaluating a self-report measure of men’s ability to balance needs in the father-child relationship. Data from two samples (93 community fathers and 85 maltreating fathers) provided mixed results: Support was obtained for the internal consistency and construct validity of the image-emotional needs subscale of the measure; however, minimal support was obtained for the personal needs subscale. Furthermore, in contrast to expectation, discriminant validity was not obtained for either subscale, as maltreating fathers reported a better ability to balance needs on both scales than fathers drawn from a community sample. Social desirability was one of several factors deemed to play a key role in this finding. Each study’s contribution to the field is reviewed, along with discussion of limitations and future directions.

Despite the high prevalence of father-perpetrated maltreatment, relatively little empirical attention has been given to men who abuse and neglect their children (Dubowitz, 2006, 2009; Haskett, Marziano, & Dover, 1996). To further our understanding, the current dissertation explored father-child relational dynamics that underlie risk for child maltreatment. In the first study, data from a sample of 121 maltreating fathers were used to discern differential patterns of parenting dynamics using both theoretical and statistical approaches to classification. It was hypothesized that fathers would show problems predominantly in one of five areas: emotional unavailability; negative attribution, harshness, and rejection; developmentally inappropriate interaction; poor psychological boundaries; and exposure of a child to hostile inter-parental relations. Contrary to expectation, little support was obtained for the predominant problem hypothesis. Although methodological limitations may play a role, results indicated that men were more clearly differentiated by the degree of severity evidenced across their problematic parent-child interactions, than by differences in the specific pattern of problems they experienced. An interesting finding from Study 1 was that increasingly severe relational problems were associated with a misprioritization of parent and child needs. Study 2 further explored this dynamic by revising and re-evaluating a self-report measure of men’s ability to balance needs in the father-child relationship. Data from two samples (93 community fathers and 85 maltreating fathers) provided mixed results: Support was obtained for the internal consistency and construct validity of the image-emotional needs subscale of the measure; however, minimal support was obtained for the personal needs subscale. Furthermore, in contrast to expectation, discriminant validity was not obtained for either subscale, as maltreating fathers reported a better ability to balance needs on both scales than fathers drawn from a community sample. Social desirability was one of several factors deemed to play a key role in this finding. Each study’s contribution to the field is reviewed, along with discussion of limitations and future directions.