Today, we see a growing variation in fathers’ involvement: while some families continue to exhibit a traditional division of responsibilities, more fathers undertake a directly involved parenting role. The project uses this growing variation as a window of opportunity for examining family systems effects of involved fatherhood. While the literature generally links father involvement to positive child outcomes, studies on shared caregiving and coparenting have found both positive and negative effects of involved fatherhood. These findings indicate that family subsystems change, when fatherhood practice does. A deeper understanding of these dynamics is needed. The overall aim of the project is to investigate effects of shared caregiving (e.g. shared parental leave) on father involvement and of early father involvement on family development including both coparenting and child development. The project is a PhD-project with independent research aims within the large-scale project The Family-start-up Program. Participants are 1700 first time mothers and their partners who were surveyed during pregnancy and at 10, 18 and 52 months postpartum. The project will add empirical evidence to the theoretical connection between father involvement and shared parenting. Findings will have implications for our theoretical models of the family system and can inform future efforts to support early phases of parenthood in families who are moving toward more involved fatherhood.

Keywords: father involvement, fatherhood, shared parenting, shared caregiving, coparenting, paternity leave, play and care, emotional attachment, gender roles, child development, family systems. 

Head of Project:

Anne Klode

Other associates:

Tea Trillingsgaard (supervisor), Hanne Nørr Fentz (co-supervisor), Marianne Simonsen