A MATTER OF TIMING: AGE AT TRANSITION TO PARENTHOOD AND FATHERS’
PARTICIPATION IN CHILDREN’S ACTIVITIES
Matthew Weinshenker
University of Chicago
Paper proposal submitted for consideration for the 2005 Annual Meeting of the American Sociological
Association. Please do not cite, copy, or distribute without the author’s permission.
Abstract: This paper investigates whether resident biological fathers’ involvement in shared activities with
children age 5 and older (n=545) is related to the age at which the man became a father for the first time.
Two alternate possibilities are tested. According to the first, fatherhood timing is associated with
involvement because early and delayed fathers differ in ways suggested by the theories of identity, social
exchange, or structural constraint. The second posits that timing is only associated with involvement
among men who have certain characteristics. There is little support for the first possibility, mainly because
timing is often unrelated to the activities men do with their children. Depending on the specific activity
considered, however, timing predicts participation among men who are either very committed or not at all
committed to involved parenting. The results show commitment to involved fatherhood means different
things to men who became fathers at younger and older ages. They also suggest that timing is related to
social class, but is not epiphenomenal.
Keywords: Father involvement, timing of fatherhood, identity, commitment, social exchange, structural
constraint
This research was supported by a National Institute on Aging pre-doctoral fellowship administered through
the Population Research Centers at the University of Chicago. The author would like to thank Linda Waite,
Barbara Schneider, Patrick Heuveline, and Rafe Stolzenberg for their advice. Address correspondence to:
Matthew Weinshenker, Apt. 3A, 175 Eastern Parkway, Brooklyn, NY 11238.
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