‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
The perceptions and experiences
of fathers in South Africa
First submission: September 2006
During the past two decades, fatherhood has become an increasingly important
issue, not only in scholarly debates but also in popular forums in South Africa. This
article reports on some findings of a quantitative study, undertaken in the Gauteng
province of South Africa, that aimed to shed light on the extent to which men are
embracing the “new fatherhood” culture and have become active, nurturant fathers.
Although men are becoming more actively involved in child-care, many still find
it difficult to manifest high levels of active fatherly involvement, even if they consider
it fair to expect a man to perform active fatherwork and define fatherhood as
synonymous with nurturant paternal involvement. The research results also indicate
the existence of a positive correlation between a man’s perception of his paternal
involvement and his experience of marital quality.
‘Nuwe vaderskap’ – feit of fiksie? Die persepsies en
ervarings van vaders in Suid-Afrika
Vaderskap het gedurende die afgelope twee dekades toenemend meer aandag in
beide vakkundige geskrifte en populêre forums in Suid-Afrika begin geniet. Hierdie
artikel doen verslag van die bevindige van ’n kwantitatiewe studie wat in die
The Essay on Six Young Men Analysis
“Six young men” by “Ted Hughes” who was a son of a soldier in the First World War and was one of the two percent of his regiment that survived Gallipoli. This poem is on a picture of six young men who are about to go to war. Hughes is criticising war and saying that it pointlessly takes away the live and future of the young men who participate and die in war. Hughes describes each man individually ...
Gauteng-provinsie van Suid-Afrika gedoen is, met die doel om lig te werp op die
mate waartoe mans die “nuwe vaderskap” kultuur aanvaar en aktiewe koesterende
vaders geword het. Alhoewel mans meer aktief by die versorging van kinders betrokke
geraak het, vind talle mans dit steeds moeilik om hoë vlakke van aktiewe vaderlike
betrokkenheid te toon. Ten spyte hiervan beskou talle van hierdie mans dit as regverdig
om van ’n man te verwag om aktiewe vaderskapwerk te verrig en definieer
hulle vaderskap as koesterende vaderlike betrokkenheid. Die navorsingsresultate
dui ook aan dat daar ’n positiewe korrelasie bestaan tussen die man se persepsie van
sy eie vaderlike betrokkenheid en sy ervaring van huwelikskwaliteit.
In recent research within the cadre of Family Studies, the role of
the man in the family (especially that of the father) has become
an important topic, as is evident in extensive public deliberation
and scholarly inquiry. Due to changes in the family economy and the
continuous rise of feminism, the cultural saliency of the patriarchal
model of the role of husband and father has been challenged, especially
insofar as more and more researchers and theorists are focusing
on the shift in the man’s role within the family from that of sole breadwinner
to that of involved nurturant father.
The dynamic qualities of the man’s role as father and the nature
of the father-child relationship, in particular, have been central topics
in both research and debates among theorists. Griswold (1993: 244)
grasps the essence of the changing nature and the diversity of fatherhood
when he says:
[F]atherhood of recent decades has become a kaleidoscope of images
and trends, a sure sign that it has lost cultural coherence […] Buffeted
by powerful demographic, economic and political changes,
fatherhood […] is now fraught with ambiguity and confusion. Not
so surprisingly, so, too, are the fathers themselves.
1. The changing role of fatherhood and the
changing nature of fatherwork
Viewed historically, the man’s roles in the family have undergone
changes throughout time. This is especially true with regard to the
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role of father, with special reference to more nurturant/expressive
qualities being merged into the (“traditional”) role of family breadwinner.
Although these changes have been evident in some societies
for centuries, it is not as if a uniliniar change process has taken place,
but rather that a situation has existed in which society’s definition of
fatherhood has oscillated between two poles, ie the father as provider
and the father as nurturer (Atkinson & Blackwelder 1993: 975).
Apart from this historical flexibility pertaining to fatherhood
(Marsiglio et al 2000: 1175), Daly (1993: 510) emphasises that, in
researching the changes in the “culture” of fatherhood (the shared
values, norms and beliefs regarding the role of father and fatherhood
In recent research within the cadre of Family Studies, the role of
the man in the family (especially that of the father) has become
an important topic, as is evident in extensive public deliberation
and scholarly inquiry. Due to changes in the family economy and the
continuous rise of feminism, the cultural saliency of the patriarchal
model of the role of husband and father has been challenged, especially
insofar as more and more researchers and theorists are focusing
on the shift in the man’s role within the family from that of sole breadwinner
to that of involved nurturant father.
The dynamic qualities of the man’s role as father and the nature
of the father-child relationship, in particular, have been central topics
in both research and debates among theorists. Griswold (1993: 244)
grasps the essence of the changing nature and the diversity of fatherhood
when he says:
[F]atherhood of recent decades has become a kaleidoscope of images
and trends, a sure sign that it has lost cultural coherence […] Buffeted
by powerful demographic, economic and political changes,
fatherhood […] is now fraught with ambiguity and confusion. Not
so surprisingly, so, too, are the fathers themselves.
1. The changing role of fatherhood and the
changing nature of fatherwork
Viewed historically, the man’s roles in the family have undergone
The Essay on Gender Roles & Family Structure Changes
Today, people realize and see that there is not the same consensus of family dynamics and lifestyles that the 1950's demonstrated when "the family life and gender roles became much more predictable" (Coontz 36). An analysis of Stephanie Coontz's, What We Really Miss About the 1950's, along with the episodes of Leave It To Beaver, have revealed certain roles and structure of a quintessential family ...
changes throughout time. This is especially true with regard to the
role of father, with special reference to more nurturant/expressive
qualities being merged into the (“traditional”) role of family breadwinner.
Although these changes have been evident in some societies
for centuries, it is not as if a uniliniar change process has taken place,
but rather that a situation has existed in which society’s definition of
fatherhood has oscillated between two poles, ie the father as provider
and the father as nurturer (Atkinson & Blackwelder 1993: 975).
Apart from this historical flexibility pertaining to fatherhood
(Marsiglio et al 2000: 1175), Daly (1993: 510) emphasises that, in
researching the changes in the “culture” of fatherhood (the shared
values, norms and beliefs regarding the role of father and fatherhood
(2001: 542) and Posel & Devey (2006: 45) write about father absence
among African families in South Africa as a result of men’s involvement
in labour migration. Fathers in the lower socio-economic
class can also be “absent” due to being primarily involved in routine
and/or physical demanding (blue-collar) jobs, characterised by long
working hours and sometimes also being compelled to work overtime,
shifts and weekends (Lynn 1974: 7, Hosking 2006: 220).
Father absence or paternal deprivation does not only entail the
actual physical absence of the father, for example as a result of being geographically
separated from his family on the basis of work-related
responsibilities. It may also refer to a situation in which, although a
father may be available to the child, he is absent on the more psychological
and emotional level (Biller 1995: 72, Morrell 2006: 18).
It thus seems that fathers in the middle and higher socio-economic
classes, who fill managerial and/or professional career positions, are
more likely to be perceived by their family members as being “absent”
despite the fact that they are in close proximity to their children.
These professional positions (the so-called “greedy occupations”),
usually demand high levels of commitment to the career itself as well
The Essay on Father Involvement Child Mother Childhood
In 2004, the British Journal of Educational Psychology releases a report on a research that was conducted by Eir ini Flouri and Ann Buchanan dealing with the correlation of early interaction of parents and the future assessment of their children in school. Previous to this article, little research was given to the individual long-term contribution that early parent involvement had in a child's ...
as to the formal organisation as a whole, and bring about a tendency
towards preoccupation with the content of the work.
The attempt to identify the possible impact of father absence
has initiated a heated debate among several researchers. Shapiro et al
(1995: 7) report on the findings of those who are of the opinion that
a father’s prolonged absence may have negative effects on a child’s
life, especially due to the absence of an appropriate father role-model
and a significant father-child relationship. Father absence may affect
children’s lives negatively in terms of their self-concepts, peer-group
relationships, scholastic performance, psycho-social adjustment and
gender-role identity, among oher things (Biller 1995: 74, Lamb 1995:
31, Morrell 2006: 18).
Other researchers, however, consider this argument to be an
oversimplification. They are of the opinion that the negative impact
of father absence may be due to a combination of factors, rather than
the “absence” per se. For example, Lamb (1995: 31) contends that the
broader context of an individual’s family life must be taken into con
Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
56
sideration before the possible destructive impact of the phenomenon
of father absence can be made generalised.
It is within the context of this concern about the prevalence of
families in which fathers are not actively involved in the lives of their
children and the renewed interest in the ideology of “new fatherhood”
that “involved fathering” has become a criterion by which to
appraise “good fathers” (Lamb 1987: 6).
1.2 ‘New fatherhood’ and active father involvement
The ideology of “new fatherhood” — with men becoming more
involved parents — originally came to the fore during the 1920s
(Griswold 1993: 6), but was to some extent limited to men in the
middle socio-economic classes in countries such as the USA (Griswold
1993: 91) and Sweden (Hwang 1987: 119).
This new model of fatherhood
incorporated atypical role behaviour qualities such as more
expressive and nurturant involvement of fathers in the lives of their
The Term Paper on Father Child Relationship In The Novels Maus And Atticus
Father Child Relationship in the Novels Maus and Atticus Relationships are often predicated on the historical context of human interaction. The Atticus and Maus are stories about the way in which generational conflict is associated with the past. They also deal with the idea that exploration of cultural history introduces feelings of shame, guilt and blame. Artie of Maus is constantly in friction ...
children. The major contributing factors in the development of this
so-called “masculine domesticity” included the rise of feminism in
the 1920s, legislation amending family law with special reference
to the rights of children, and the promotion of a therapeutic culture
with regard to parenting in general and fatherhood in particular (cf
Hwang 1987: 119, Griswold 1993: 6, 60, 108, LaRossa & Reitzes
1993: 455).
The new fatherhood of the 1920s was, however, far from being indicative
of either a more egalitarian relationship between the spouses
or an equal allocation of child-care responsibilities (LaRossa & Reitzes
1995: 229).
This masculine domesticity was still in the main very
conservative in nature and “rarely if ever questioned the traditional
gender-based division of labour [… m]en would spend more time in
the domestic sphere, but it remained women’s domain” (Griswold
1993: 117).
The second wave, originating in the mid-1970s and the early
1980s, differs from the first wave insofar as the ideology of new fatherhood
touched on more levels of the husband-wife and father-child
relationships and was realised in the lives of a greater diversity of
Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
57
men in both Western societies (Griswold 1993: 7) and developing
countries such as South Africa (cf Smit 2004: 102).
The emphasis
of this wave is on the husband/father, who still retains his role as
provider (although not in all cases as a sole provider), but who is
also shifting towards becoming a competent parent in terms of his
participation in the lives of his children on a day-to-day level, both
physically and emotionally (Atkinson & Blackwelder 1993: 976).
Rather than accentuating the traditional gender-stereotyped roles of
“father” and “mother”, the focus falls on non-gender-specific parenting,
with both parents incorporating instrumental as well as expressive
qualities in their parental role behaviour.
The concept of the “new father” thus refers to a man who has
The Essay on Woman To Man Child Life Poem
Woman to Man by Judith Wright At first glance, the title seemed to have more than one connotation.' Woman to Man;' is the woman giving something to the man, maybe a gift?' Woman to Man.' Maybe the title is trying to compare the two genders? I was slightly confused when I read this poem at first, but it became apparent from the rich metaphors, that it was about the sexual relation between the woman ...
moved towards higher levels of active father involvement — defining his
role as father as being committed to addressing the physical, mental
and emotional needs of his children, rather than merely conforming
to cultural and social norms on paternal role obligations (Ishii-Kuntz
1995: 103, Dollahite et al 1997: 18).
This conceptualisation of fatherhood
relates strongly to the views of theorists such as Dollahite et al
(1997) and Hawkins & Dollahite (1997).
They define the concept of
“generative fathering” as involving far more than merely providing
financial support, but also being committed to and working hard at
lovingly nurturing the children — being actively involved in enhancing
the children’s well-being (Hawkins & Dollahite 1997: 15,
Cherlin 2002: 327).
In studying fatherhood from the point of view of generativity
and combining it with a symbolic interactionist approach (as was the
case in this study), the focus falls on men’s subjective experiences of
being fathers, not only in terms of the way they define their roles as
fathers, but also with reference to how they perceive and construct
their identities as fathers in various circumstances (cf Daly 1995: 26,
Morrell 2006: 14).
This perspective thus takes into consideration men’s
own definition of their realities, influenced by conflicting images of
ideal fathering and the complex nature of the changes currently taking
place in family life (cf Marsiglio et al 2000: 1177).
Although a few researchers have, during the past few years, started
to focus on fatherhood within the South African context, it is clear
Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
58
that a significant lacuna still exists. Richter (2006: 62), for example,
contemplating the importance of research on fathering in South Africa,
emphasises that “[i]n general, […] little is known about how males
develop a perception of fatherhood, their status as fathers, and the
roles associated with being a father”. Taking the theoretical overview
of the dynamic nature of the role of the man as father as a point of departure
(as outlined above), this article will discuss some of the findings
of a quantitative study conducted in the Gauteng province of
South Africa, focusing, among other things, on the perceptions and
experiences of men in dual-earner families with regard to fathering.
2. Fathering: the perceptions and experiences of a
sample of South African men
In order to address the gap in the literature with regard to fathering
in South Africa, the following research questions were posed:
• What is the man’s perception of the extent to which he is involved
in fatherwork (ie, manifesting active father involvement)?
• To what extent does he consider it to be fair to expect a man to
be involved in active fathering?
• To what extent do the abovementioned perceptions relate to
the man’s experience of marital quality?
2.1 Research design
Four hundred men from dual-earner families throughout Gauteng
were selected by means of purposive and snowball sampling. They
were married men with Afrikaans or English as their vernacular and
at least one child under the age of thirteen. They were approached to
participate in the quantitative study by completing a self-administered
questionnaire. Several key biographical/demographical variables, identified
in the literature as being significant in research dealing with fatherhood,
were included in the study as control variables. Examples include
age, educational qualifications, occupation, the number of hours spent
at work per day, the duration of the (current) marriage, the wife’s
occupation and educational qualifications, and the number, gender
and ages of the children. The response rate of the study was 94%.
Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
59
Although the research population had to comply with the abovementioned
specific criteria, and no probability sampling method
was used, the respondents comprised a wide range of men. The discussion
which follows provides a broad overview of their profile in
terms of the biographical variables. Their ages ranged between 21
and 61, with the average being 35.02 years. As far as home language
was concerned, 60% were Afrikaans-speaking and 40% Englishspeaking.
The average duration of their marriages to their current
spouses was 10.03 years. With regard to their educational qualifications,
8.2% had a postgraduate degree, 7.0% a Bachelor’s degree,
19.5% a Grade 12 certificate plus a diploma, 40.5% a Grade 12 certificate,
and 28.8% a lesser qualification than Grade 12.
The men’s average age at the birth of their first child was 26.7.
The average age of their youngest child was 5.07. In addition, more
than half (52%) of the respondents had two children, 32% had only
one child, and a few (16%) had three or more children.
In terms of occupational categories, 10.6% of the respondents
held managerial positions and/or had professional careers, 30.0% had
semi-professional careers, 23.3% were in clerical positions, 7.3% were in
service-related jobs, and 28.8% were artisans. The average number
of hours they spent at work per day was 9.18, with another 1.07 hours
being spent working on job-related tasks after hours at home.
The following three scales were developed in order to address
the research questions:
• Scale 1: The man’s perception of the extent to which he demonstrated
active father involvement
The concept of active father involvement, or fatherwork, was operationalised
by making use of Lamb’s threefold dimensions of father
involvement (Lamb 1987: 8 & 1995: 23).
The first dimension refers
to the extent to which the father is in interaction with his child.
Interaction, in this context, refers to situations in which the father
converses one-to-one with his child or is involved in interaction with
his child during the performance of child-care activities. Items include
questions such as: How often do you help your child with his/
her homework? How often do you have a conversation with your
Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
60
child? How often do you play games with your child? The possible
responses on the five-point Likert-type scale range between “never”
and “always”. The second dimension deals with the extent to which
the father takes responsibility for and is accountable for the wellbeing
and care of his child (Lamb 1995: 24).
Questions include:
How often do you take care of you child when he/she is ill? How
often do you take responsibility for making dental/medical appointments
for your child? The third dimension is accessibility. This does
not require person-to-person interaction with the child, but refers
rather to the father’s physical and psychological availability when in
proximity to his child (Lamb 1995: 24).
Related questions include:
How often do you watch television with your child? How often do
you supervise your child while he/she is doing homework? This scale
consists of a total number of 20 items, with a Cronbach’s coefficient
a value of 0.910.
• Scale 2: The man’s perception of the extent to which it is fair to
expect a man to be involved in active fathering
In addition to the man’s perception of his actual active fathering conduct,
his perception of the extent to which it is fair to expect a man to
manifest active fathering was also subjected to scrutiny. The twenty
items in this scale correspond with the items in Scale 1, except that
rather than emphasising the respondent’s actual fathering conduct,
the focus falls on his perception of the fairness and justness of expecting
a man to perform fatherwork. Related questions include: To
what extent is it fair to expect a man to take care of his child when
he/she is ill? To what extent is it fair to expect a man to get up during
the night when his child needs a parent? The items are ranked on a
scale ranging from 1 (to no extent) to 5 (to the greatest extent).
This
scale has a Cronbach’s coefficient a value of 0.964.
• Scale 3: The man’s experience of marital quality
In this context, the man’s experience of marital quality refers to the
extent to which the man perceives his marriage to be successful, on
the one hand, and, on the other, to the level of satisfaction or happiness
he experiences with regard to his marital relationship. Items
include questions such as: To what extent does your marriage mee Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
61
your expectations? To what extent do you feel emotionally fulfilled
in your marital relationship? To what extent do you feel frustrated in
your relationship with your wife? Once again, the items are ranked
on a scale ranging from 1 (to no extent) to 5 (to the greatest extent).
This scale, with its 19 items, has a Chronbach’s coefficient a value
of 0.935.
2.2 Hypotheses
A number of hypotheses were formulated to guide the research. The
first dealt with the relationship between the various (independent)
biographical variables (which were identified to act as control variables)
and the two dependent variables, ie the respondent’s perception
of the extent to which he demonstrated active father involvement,
and his perception of the extent to which it is fair to expect
a man to perform fatherwork. Thus, it was hypothesised that men
with higher educational qualifications will be more inclined than
men with lower educational qualifications to manifest active fathering
themselves and to consider it fair to expect a man to perform
fatherwork. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that the older a man
is at the birth of his first child, the more involved he will be in active
fathering and the more likely he will be to consider it fair to expect
a man to be an active, nurturant father.
Three other hypotheses read as follows:
• The more involved a man is in active fathering, the more likely
he will be to consider it fair to expect men to be involved in
active fathering.
• The more involved a man is in active fathering, the better his Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
62
2.3 Results and discussion
The frequency distribution of the respondents’ scores on the relevant
scales provides a bird’s-eye view of the possible answers to the first
two research questions. It is interesting to note that analysis of this
frequency distribution on the scale measuring the men’s perceptions
of the extent to which they demonstrated active father involvement
reveals that 54.2% of their scores were higher than the median of 60
(arithmetic mean = 61.05; mode = 44; standard deviation = 14.63).
This distribution indicates that more than half of the men in the
study considered themselves to display moderate to high levels of
active father involvement, while 45.8% considered themselves to be
involved in the care-taking of their children to a lesser extent or not
at all. This shows that a large number of men in the sample were of
the opinion that the culture of “new fatherhood” had become a behavioural
manifestation in their lives.
On the fairness scale, 87.2% of the scores were higher than the
median score (60), which means that the majority of the respondents
felt that it was fair and just to expect a man to manifest active father
involvement (arithmetic mean = 80.76; mode = 100; standard deviation
= 17.18).
In this regard, 61 respondents (15.3%) scored the
highest possible scale value (100).
Only 12.8% of the respondents
were of the opinion that it was to a lesser extent fair, or even unfair to
expect a man to be actively involved in child-care.
It thus seems that, although only somewhat more than half of
the respondents indicated that they were active, nurturant fathers
(scale 1), it was nevertheless the perception of nearly 88% of the
sample that it is to a large extent fair to expect a man to be actively
involved in the lives of his children. This, once again, shows that the
actual conduct of active fathering is not on a par with the perceived
culture of fatherhood (the shared norms, values and beliefs with regard
to the man’s role as father).
This brings the discussion to the question of the possible relationships
between the independent biographical variables and the
two fatherhood-related scales (cf Table 1).
experience of marital quality will be.
• The fairer a man perceives it to be to expect men to be involved
in active fathering, the higher his experience of marital quality
will be.t Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
63
Table 1: The relationship between the biographical variables and the
man’s perception of the extent to which he demonstrates active father
involvement (scale 1) and the man’s perception of the extent to which it is
fair to expect a man to be involved in active fathering (sca The independent variables can be grouped together into five
sets, the first of which relates to the man’s personal biographical information.
It is interesting to note that none of these variables played
any significant role in the man’s perception of his own level of active
father involvement. It therefore seems as if the respondents’ levels
of father involvement do not vary in terms of their age, mothertongue
(either Afrikaans or English), marital status at the time thatle 2) the marriage was contracted (ie single, widowed or divorced), or the
duration of the marriage. Furthermore, there was no significant relationship
between the man’s perceived level of paternal involvement
and either his educational qualifications or his age at the birth of his
first child. This is in contrast with the views of a number of theorists
(cf Cooney et al 1993: 206, Coltrane 1995: 265, Walker & McGraw
2000: 567) who consider the man’s level of education and his status
as either an “early” father (becoming a father in his early twenties) or
a “late” father (having delayed fatherhood until after the age of 30)
to be predictors of active paternal involvement.
“Early” versus “late” fatherhood does, however, play a significant
role in the man’s perception of the fairness of the expectation
that a man should be involved in active fathering (scale 2).
From the
results it is clear that men who became fathers for the first time at an
older age were significantly more inclined to perceive it to be fair to
expect a man to be an active, nurturant father than was the case with
men who became fathers at an earlier age (r = 0.274; p = 0.000).
In terms of the men’s educational qualifications, it is interesting to
note that the men with postgraduate degrees, in contrast to those with
other educational qualifications, were significantly more inclined to
view the expectation that a man needs to manifest active fathering
(scale 2) as fair (F = 11.246; p = 0.000).
This finding links with the
work of Erickson & Gecas (1991: 124) who are of the opinion that a
man’s educational background is more likely than his actual paternal
behavioural patterns to affect his attitude towards fathering.
Another biographical variable that relates to the men’s view on
the fairness of expecting a man to be an active father is that of home
language. English-speaking men (arithmetical mean = 83.86) are more
inclined than Afrikaans-speaking men (arithmetical mean = 79.35)
to perceive it to be fair to expect a man to be an active, nurturant father
(t = 3.23; p = 0.015).
The variables relating to the man’s employment or working
sphere constitute a second set of independent variables. In the first
place, with regard to the man’s occupational category, it is evident
that men who are involved in professional careers or managerial Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
66
positions were not only more inclined than men in other occupational
categories to consider it fair to expect a man to manifest active,
nurturant fathering (F = 11.112; p = 0.000), but also showed a higher
tendency to view themselves as active, nurturant fathers (F = 2.698;
p = 0.030).
This finding is in contrast to the work of Spruijt & Duindam
(2002: 690), who found no significant relationship between men’s
occupational levels and the extent to which they were involved in
active fathering. It also differs from the findings of Erickson & Gecas
(1991:124), which indicated that men who had highly-paid professional
careers were less inclined to be involved in domestic and childcare-
related tasks, due to time and energy constraints. A possible
explanation may be that men with professional careers may manifest
higher levels of father involvement related to enhancing the emotional
and cognitive well-being of their children (such as reading them stories),
rather than performing the specific routine child-care-related
tasks measured in the studies cited by Erickson & Gecas (1991).
It is clear, in the second place, that the more hours a man spends
at work per day, the lower the likelihood is that he will perceive himself
to be an active, nurturant father (r = -0.140; p = 0.005).
This
negative correlation relates to the work of both Barclay & Lupton
(1999: 1019) and Spruijt & Duindam (2002: 691), who are of the
opinion that long working hours are an impediment to increased levels
of paternal involvement.
However, the more hours a man spends per day at home doing
occupation-related work, the higher the probability is that he will
view himself as demonstrating active father involvement (r = 0.133;
p = 0.008) and the more likely he will be to perceive it to be fair to
expect a man to be involved in active fathering (r = 0.131; p = 0.009).
This may, among other reasons, be due to the fact that although
such men spend their time at home doing occupation-related work,
they may be in close proximity to their children, increasing their
accessibility — to use Lamb’s (1995) concept — when it comes to
addressing their children’s needs.
In contrast to studies referred to by DeGenova & Rice (2002:
263), no statistically significant relationship was shown to exist between
whether or not a man made use of flexible or alternative wo Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
66
positions were not only more inclined than men in other occupational
categories to consider it fair to expect a man to manifest active,
nurturant fathering (F = 11.112; p = 0.000), but also showed a higher
tendency to view themselves as active, nurturant fathers (F = 2.698;
p = 0.030).
This finding is in contrast to the work of Spruijt & Duindam
(2002: 690), who found no significant relationship between men’s
occupational levels and the extent to which they were involved in
active fathering. It also differs from the findings of Erickson & Gecas
(1991:124), which indicated that men who had highly-paid professional
careers were less inclined to be involved in domestic and childcare-
related tasks, due to time and energy constraints. A possible
explanation may be that men with professional careers may manifest
higher levels of father involvement related to enhancing the emotional
and cognitive well-being of their children (such as reading them stories),
rather than performing the specific routine child-care-related
tasks measured in the studies cited by Erickson & Gecas (1991).
It is clear, in the second place, that the more hours a man spends
at work per day, the lower the likelihood is that he will perceive himself
to be an active, nurturant father (r = -0.140; p = 0.005).
This
negative correlation relates to the work of both Barclay & Lupton
(1999: 1019) and Spruijt & Duindam (2002: 691), who are of the
opinion that long working hours are an impediment to increased levels
of paternal involvement.
However, the more hours a man spends per day at home doing
occupation-related work, the higher the probability is that he will
view himself as demonstrating active father involvement (r = 0.133;
p = 0.008) and the more likely he will be to perceive it to be fair to
expect a man to be involved in active fathering (r = 0.131; p = 0.009).
This may, among other reasons, be due to the fact that although
such men spend their time at home doing occupation-related work,
they may be in close proximity to their children, increasing their
accessibility — to use Lamb’s (1995) concept — when it comes to
addressing their children’s needs.
In contrast to studies referred to by DeGenova & Rice (2002:
263), no statistically significant relationship was shown to exist between
whether or not a man made use of flexible or alternative workrk Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
68
interesting to note that a similar pattern exists for the scores on this
scale with regard to men with postgraduate degrees and men whose
wives had postgraduate degrees.
The second of the relevant biographical variables is the occupational
category of the wife. Men whose wives held managerial positions
or had professional careers were significantly more inclined
to perceive it as fair to expect a man to be an active, nurturant father
than those whose spouses fell into other occupational categories (F
= 12.715; p = 0.000).
This may, among other reasons, be due to the
fact that women with high educational qualifications and/or professional
careers are more likely to be exposed to feminist ideas and may
therefore influence their husbands’ views on equal parenting.
It is, however, clear from Table 1 that none of the variables related to
the respondents’ spouses had a significant bearing on the men’s perception
of their own levels of father involvement (scale 1).
This is in
contrast to research findings that indicate, for example, that there is a
positive relationship between a wife’s level of education and her husband’s
level of active paternal involvement (Erickson & Gecas 1991:
124, Spruijt & Duindam 2002: 686).
It also differs from the work of
Moen (1992: 64) and Erickson (1993: 893), who state that women
in more professional careers usually have husbands who are to a large
extent involved in the fulfilment of domestic and child-care-related
obligations. A possible explanation for these findings may be found
in the fact that, in South Africa, parents in well-paid professional careers
are likely to have a full-time domestic service to assist them in
performing time-consuming child-care-related tasks.
There is no significant correlation between the man’s level of
paternal involvement and, on the one hand, the spouse’s average
number of hours per day spent at work and, on the other hand, the
spouse’s average number of working hours per day spent at home.
These findings are in contrast to other reported studies, which indicate
that so-called active caring fathers have wives who work long
hours away from home (Aldous et al 1998: 818, cf Spruijt & Duindam
2002: 685).
Once again, the utilisation of domestic help in the
South African context may operate as an intervening variable. Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
69
A number of studies emphasise the importance of variables
related to the man’s children in relation to his level of paternal conduct.
It is, however, evident from Table 1 that there are no significant
relationships between the level of active father involvement and the
three variables related to the man’s children, ie their number, their
gender, or the age of the youngest child in the household. These
findings differ from those of researchers such as Gerson (1993: 219);
Aldous et al (1998: 811); and Spruijt & Duindam (2002: 686), who
state that fathers are more involved in the care of their sons than of
their daughters, and that levels of active fathering are higher when
the children in the household are fewer and younger. It thus seems
that, irrespective of the gender, the number and the age of their children,
the men in the sample were of the opinion that they manifested
father involvement to at least some extent.
There is, however, a significant (negative) correlation between
the man’s perception of the fairness of the expectation that men should
be involved in active fathering (scale 2) and the number of dependent
children in the household. Although weak, this negative correlation
(r = -0.104; p = 0.037) suggests that, as the number of children in the
household increases, fathers will be significantly less likely to consider
it fair to expect a man to manifest active father involvement.
In addition to this relationship, there is also a negative correlation
between scale 2 and the age of the man’s youngest child (r = -0.105;
p = 0.036).
This means that the older the man’s youngest child, the
less inclined he will be to perceive it as fair to expect a man to be involved
in active fathering.
The fifth and last set of variables comprises independent variables
of a general nature. Three variables, relating to general information
on the respondent’s family of orientation, play a significant
role in his perception of the fairness of the expectation that a man
should be involved in active fathering (scale 2).
The first of these is
the occupational status of his mother while he was still at school. It is
striking that respondents whose mothers held full-time positions (n
= 153, arithmetical mean = 85.96) were significantly more inclined
to consider it fair to expect a man to be an active, nurturant father (F
= 8.518; p = 0.000) than those whose mothers were part-time workers Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
70
(n = 59, arithmetical mean = 77.34) or not formally employed in the
labour market (n = 188, arithmetical mean = 77.01).
Similar results were found with reference to the mothers’ occupational
categories. Respondents whose mothers held managerial/
professional positions were significantly more inclined to perceive it as
fair to expect a man to be an active, nurturant father than those whose
mothers were in other occupational categories (F = 6.182; p = 0.000).
These results relate to the work of Kiecolt & Acock (1988: 711) who
are of the opinion that a mother’s labour market participation may
generate a more liberated gender-role orientation in a son. This effect
is accentuated in cases where a mother has a professional career, thus
exposing her son to a non-traditional female role-model.
There were also corresponding findings with regard to the occupational
category of the respondents’ fathers while they were still
at school. Respondents whose fathers were in managerial positions or professional
careers were significantly more inclined to perceive it as fair
to expect a man to be involved in active, nurturant fathering (scale 2)
than those whose fathers were in other occupational categories (F =
2.555; p = 0.039).
Using the scale developed for the purposes of this
study to measure the man’s feminist orientation (Cronbach’s coefficient
a = 0.923), it is interesting to note that there was a significant
positive relationship between the fathers in professional careers and
the degree to which the respondents had a feminist orientation (F =
4.661; p = 0.001).
This links with the work of Spruijt & Duindam
(2002: 686), who are of the opinion that a man’s “gender-role ideology
and attitudes about his role appear to be becoming more important
for the father’s involvement in child care”.
Men who have an egalitarian outlook on family life (n = 168)
not only demonstrate a greater inclination to view themselves as being
actively involved in the lives of their children (F = 4.633; p = 0.010);
they are also more inclined to consider it fair to expect a man to be an
active, nurturant father (F = 15.818; p = 0.000).
This is in contrast
to those men who consider the traditional family (n = 83) or a modified
version of the traditional family (n = 149) to be the ideal, and
worth striving for. The findings of theorists such as Glass (1998: 823)
and DeGenova & Rice (2002: 151) concur with this. These authors Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
71
emphasise that men who define their marriages in terms of companionship
and an equal partnership, and who have a more egalitarian
gender-role orientation, are more likely to be actively involved in
taking care of their children and to be advocates for a more equal allocation
of domestic and child-care tasks between the spouses in the
household. According to Schwartz (1994: 4), one of the characteristics
of the so-called peer marriage (in which both spouses have an
egalitarian gender-role orientation within the context of the marital
relationship) is a more equal distribution of child-care responsibilities
between the spouses.
According to official statistics more than 850 000 people, mostly
women, were involved in the service sector as domestic workers in
South Africa in 2005 (South African Institute of Race Relations 2006:
161).
Considering that many of these workers are also involved in
child-care activities in the households of their employers (cf Cock
1980, Preston-Whyte 1991), domestic workers may therefore assist
parents in performing the more mundane child-care-related tasks.
In view of the high prevalence of domestic service in South Africa, it
is not surprising to find that men living in households making use
of the services of a full-time domestic worker (arithmetical mean =
54.65) were less likely to perceive themselves to be active, nurturant
fathers than men in households employing domestic workers only on
an occasional basis (arithmetical mean = 68.85) (F = 3.377; p = 0.005).
Apart from the relationships between some of the independent
biographical variables and the two fatherhood-related scales, as discussed
above, it is clear from the results of a Pearson’s product moment
correlation test that a positive correlation exists between the
two fatherhood-related scales (cf Table 2).
This positive correlation
(r = 0.446; p = 0.000), although modest in strength, implies that the
more a man perceives it as fair to expect a man to be actively involved
in caring for his children, the more inclined he will be to manifest
active, nurturant fathering himself (and vice versa).
Taking this positive correlation as a point of departure, thus,
the question arises as to whether the scores on the scale measuring the
perception of fairness were significantly higher/lower than the scores
on the scale measuring the perception of real behaviour. In order to
answer this question, a t-test was done. The results show that, rather
than manifesting active, involved fathering in their own behaviour
(arithmetical mean = 61.04) the men were significantly more inclined
to perceive it as fair to expect a man to be an active, nurturant
father (arithmetical mean = 80.75).
This finding corresponds with
the work of LaRossa (1988: 451) and Daly (1995: 21), who state that
the “culture” of fatherhood (the normative component of fatherhood
practices) is not necessarily in congruence with the actual behavioural
component of fathering.
Does a man’s experience of marital quality correlate with either
of the two fatherhood-related scales? In this study the results show
that there was a positive correlation between the men’s perception of
the extent to which it is fair to expect a man to be involved in active
fathering (scale 2) and their experience of marital quality (scale 3) (r
= 0.533; p = 0.000).
The same pattern is also clear with regard to active
father involvement (scale 1) and marital quality (scale 3), ie the Smit/‘New fatherhood’ — fact or fiction?
73
higher the level of active father involvement, the higher the experience
of marital quality (and vice versa) (r = 0.431; p = 0.000).
These
findings correspond with the work of Pruett (1993: 49) and Kalmijn
(1999: 409), who agree that a high level of father involvement is
linked to the experience of a high level of marital satisfaction.
4. Conclusion
In comparison with to motherhood, fatherhood has been far less studied
as a socio-cultural phenomenon. This is particularly the case with
regard to literature on South African men’s perceptions of the nature
of their own paternal conduct. In an attempt to get a clearer view of
the extent to which men consider themselves to be active, nurturant
fathers, this study has drawn on the results of a quantitative research
project focusing on a sample of South African men and their views
regarding fatherhood, fatherwork and the extent to which it can be
considered fair to expect a man to be involved in child-care. From
the results it seems that the “new fatherhood” has become more fact
than fiction in the lives of many of these men. Although some of the
respondents, for a number of reasons, may not have shown high levels
of active father involvement, many of them did consider it fair to
expect a man to perform active fatherwork. They also viewed fatherhood
as synonymous with an ethical calling for responsible caring and
paternal involvement.
Numerous social changes have contributed to the process of
renegotiating the meaning of parenthood in general and fatherhood
in particular. This brings to the fore the importance of research dealing
with men’s social construction of their identities as fathers and
the definition of their “paternal conduct realities”. This is not only
significant in terms of addressing the gap in the literature with regard
to South African men’s views on fatherhood, but may also be of
importance to provide men with a ‘space’ to take cognisance of the
meanings they attach to fatherhood as well as the opportunity to
share their definitions and experiences with others.
Acta Academica 2008: 40(1)
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