Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
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.