Fathers across Western populations tend to provide more care to sons than daughters; may (at least in part) be due to differences in fitness returns to paternal direct investments by child’s sex

Why the Son-bias in Caregiving? Testing Sex-differences in the Associations Between Paternal Caregiving and Child Outcomes in England. Emily H. Emmott, Ruth Mace. Journal of Family Issues, July 18, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X20941902

Abstract: Studies show that fathers across Western populations tend to provide more care to sons than daughters. Following a human behavioral ecological framework, we hypothesize that son-biases in fathering may (at least in part) be due to differences in fitness returns to paternal direct investments by child’s sex. In this study, we investigate sex-differences in the associations between paternal caregiving and children’s outcomes in stable, two-parent families. Using data from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we test whether paternal caregiving in early childhood is associated with different effects on children’s school test scores and behavioral difficulties by children’s sex. Overall, we find that paternal caregiving is associated with higher school test scores and lower behavioral difficulty scores, but the association between paternal caregiving and school test scores was stronger for boys. Our findings highlight possible sex-differences in returns to paternal caregiving for certain domains of child outcomes in England.

Keywords: child care, quantitative, father–child relationship, parent/child relations, gender and family

Discussion

In the current study, we investigated the possible effects of paternal caregiving on child outcomes in a UK sample and explored whether this is dependent on child’s sex. Previous studies on fathers in Western populations have tended to focus on father absence or fathering relationships/attitudes. Here we investigated the association between paternal direct caregiving behavior throughout early childhood and child outcomes, providing additional evidence around the importance of father involvement in stable two-parent families in England.

Controlling for household and parental characteristics, we found that paternal caregiving predicted higher test scores and lower behavioral difficulty scores for both boys and girls. This is in line with previous studies suggesting that paternal caregiving has beneficial effects on child development in Western contexts (e.g., Jeynes, 2014; Sarkadi et al., 2008). However, the positive association between paternal caregiving and school test scores was stronger for boys: Both boys and girls achieved relatively similar levels of test scores when paternal caregiving was high but boys who experienced less paternal caregiving had notably lower school test scores compared to girls. Our results suggest that a lack of paternal caregiving may have greater detrimental effects on the educational outcomes of boys in our UK sample. While the exact mechanisms behind these findings are unclear, previous studies have found that parental involvement is positively associated with student motivation (Gonzalez-DeHass et al., 2005), and the association between parental involvement and children’s educational outcomes may be mediated by children’s own perception of competence (Topor et al., 2010). Given that boys tend to have lower student motivation than girls (such as less focus and persistence; Martin, 2004), it is possible that paternal caregiving has a stronger influence on improving such pathways for boys. Overall, our findings are in line with the broader discussion around the “greater vulnerability” of boys, where boys are thought to be more sensitive to stressful environments and require greater levels of parental investments to achieve better outcomes (Amato & Keith, 1991).

Contrary to our hypothesis, we did not find evidence of sex-differences between paternal caregiving and children’s behavioral difficulties in our data. While the reasons behind this null result are unclear, we note that previous studies which found sex-dependent associations between father absence/involvement and behavioral difficulties in the U.S. samples focused on adolescent outcomes (e.g., Carlson, 2006; Cobb-Clark & Tekin, 2014), and emerging evidence suggests adolescence is a particularly important period for socio-emotional development (Blakemore & Mills, 2014; Steinberg, 2005). Therefore, one possibility is that the effects of paternal caregiving on socio-emotional outcomes do not differ by sex in childhood but manifests itself in adolescence. As our study focused on early childhood (before age 10), it is possible that our sample of children was too young to observe any sex-differences in the associations between paternal caregiving and behavioral difficulties.

Finally, despite sex-differences in the reported patterns of maternal caregiving in our data, we found no evidence of sex-differences in the associations between maternal caregiving and behavioral difficulty scores despite daughter-biases in maternal investments. This may be due to the ceiling effect of our maternal caregiving measure, therefore we advise caution around inference.

Taken together, our study adds to the current limited evidence around potential sex-differences in the association between direct caregiving by fathers and children’s outcomes in the UK. Taking an HBE approach, we hypothesized that the well-evidenced son-biases in fathering across the United States/Western European populations may be driven by differential fitness returns to parental investment (as measured by child quality), where paternal caregiving is more beneficial to sons than daughters. Our hypothesis was partially supported, where low paternal caregiving had a greater detrimental effect on the school test scores of boys than girls, meaning the marginal fitness returns to paternal direct investments may be higher when investing in sons.

Biases in paternal caregiving and son-preferences tend to be explored in terms of sociocultural norms (e.g., Braun et al., 2011; Bulanda, 2004). We suggest that such norms may be embedded within a socioecological system where fathers who preferentially invest in sons receive “greater payoffs.” Given the complexities of human behavior, however, it is unlikely that sex-differences in educational attainment is the only or primary driver for the son-bias in paternal caregiving. Rather, differences in the returns to caregiving may act as an additional factor influencing fathering within the broader bio-social pathways in Western populations: Societal biases which lead to son-preferences may emerge from, and/or are reinforced by, sex-differences in the benefits of paternal care.

Limitations

We highlight several limitations: First, the current study focuses on the possible impact of paternal caregiving within relatively stable two-parent households, where biological fathers and biological mothers are both consistently present. This sample is therefore likely to capture a particular sub-population of parents and children in the ALSPAC data. Our study does not address the impact of paternal caregiving from non-resident fathers, and it is unclear whether there is a difference in the effects of paternal care on child development by household stability. Second, our ALSPAC sample is from a relatively ethnically and culturally homogenous area in South West England, with 95% of the children in the final sample reported as being White. As gender-roles and sociocultural contexts can vary by ethnicity (Harris, 1994), the “payoffs” of fathering may also differ—meaning we cannot be confident that the identified association between paternal caregiving and child outcomes will be present among households with other cultural backgrounds. Third, as highlighted earlier, our current data likely suffer from a ceiling effect regarding maternal caregiving. We therefore call for caution regarding the interpretation of our findings around maternal caregiving and children’s outcomes. Fourth, our measure of caregiving is derived from the frequency of various caregiving and play activities as reported by the mother and is subject to maternal response bias. We note that measuring activity frequency rather than perceived caregiving quality may mitigate some bias, and we control for possible confounders which may influence over—or under-reporting of paternal activities. Finally, we do not know how our caregiving measure relates to caregiving quality, parenting style differences, and time investments. For instance, reading a book to a child every day could equally be a 5 minutes of daily reading with minimal engagement between parent and child or 30 minutes of daily reading with active teaching.

Our findings may be strengthened by future research which explores the costs and benefits of paternal caregiving by children’s sex in different socioecological contexts. For example, are the costs and benefits of paternal caregiving in the 1990s different from the 2010s? Do they differ by household socioeconomic position? Such questions may be better addressed by conducting within-household comparisons, investigating the effect of paternal caregiving and child outcomes between different-sex siblings (thereby addressing unobserved heterogeneity to an extent). Finally, for a holistic understanding of why fathers tend to invest more in sons over daughters in many Western contexts, there is a need to develop an in-depth understanding of the bio-social pathways between fathering and child outcomes. While our current study highlights the potential differences in the effects of paternal caregiving between boys and girls, it is not clear why this difference exists, and what impact this may have on sociocultural norms. As such, we encourage future research to consider both the costs and benefits of paternal caregiving in terms of biological fitness as well as sociocultural determinants of paternal care.