Comparing Father and Mother Reports of Father Involvement Among Low-Income Minority Families

Currently available data and concerns about the validity of reports by mothers significantly truncate the ability of researchers to address a myriad of research questions concerning the involvement of fathers in families. This study aimed to inform this concern by examining predictors of father involvement and father-mother discrepancies in reports of involvement within a low-income, predominantly minority sample of families with both resident and nonresident fathers (n = 228). Paired hierarchical linear models were used to control for the interrelation between pairs of reporters. The results indicate that although fathers' and mothers' reports are similar, mothers consistently report lower levels of involvement than do fathers. Parental conflict, fathers' nonresidence, and fathers' age, as well as mothers' education and employment, predicted larger discrepancies between fathers' and mothers' reports. Key Words: father involvement, low-income families, nonresident parents, paired hierarchical linear models, parental conflict, reporter agreement. Interest in fathers' roles and behaviors in families has grown exponentially in the past 2 decades as changing social norms and demographic patterns have vastly altered societal views of paternal responsibility. Two distinct yet intertwined arenas of fathering are gaining high levels of attention and concern from policymakers, researchers, and the public. First, the growing rates of nonmarital births and marital dissolutions in American families have attracted attention to issues concerning unmarried fathers' contact with and financial support of their children, which have been captured in public policies concerning paternity establishment, child support, and public support (e.g., welfare) of poor children and families (Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, 1998). Second, as family structures and roles have grown more diverse, interest has grown dramatically in delineating how and why fathers influence children's healthy growth and development in both married and unmarried families (Cabrera, Tamis-LeMonda, Bradley, Hofferth, & Lamb, 2000; Coley, 2001; Tamis-LeMonda & Cabrera, 1999). In short, questions concerning the amount, type, and impact of fathers' involvement with their children and families are arising. Although these issues present a plethora of intriguing research questions, researchers are struggling in their attempts to study the domain of father involvement with currently available data and methods, particularly with regard to low-income families and families in which the father does not reside with his children. This dearth of information stems from three primary causes: simplistic measurement regarding father involvement, fathers' nonparticipation in research studies of child development and family functioning, and concerns about the validity of mothers' reports of father involvement. Although many national surveys contain significant information on child development, maternal behaviors, and family processes, few surveys ask specifically about the behaviors of fathers. When surveys do ask such questions, the information collected is often sparse, focusing on basic, concrete constructs such as the father's presence in the household and financial contributions to the family budget (Coley, 2001; Schaeffer, Seltzer, & Dykema, 1998). Smaller developmental studies may contain more extensive measures of these behaviors, but such studies typically use samples of convenience that are not representative and are rarely racially and economically diverse. Although improvements in measurement techniques are under way, concerns about father participation in research and the validity of mother report data are more complex issues. The reasons for the very low participation rates of fathers in research studies are diverse and include a historical assumption about the paramount importance of mothers in child development and the extreme difficulty in obtaining the participation of fathers, particularly nonresident and low-income fathers, in research samples (Schaeffer et al. …