Abstract
<p>Objective: Human fathering encompasses a wide range of behaviors that are highly variable across socioecological contexts. Variation in fathering complicates attempts to understand relationships between paternal investment and child wellbeing, as existing measures may not fully capture culturally-meaningful paternal investment. In this paper, we contribute to research on paternal investment by exploring men’s perceptions of their roles as fathers in four societies. Methods: Data stem from focus group discussions (FGDs) conducted with men with at least one living child in Bangladesh (n = 2), The Gambia (n = 4), Malawi (n = 7), and Tanzania (n = 2). In all focus groups, men discussed which childrearing tasks are considered a father’s responsibility. Transcripts were analyzed in NVivo 13 using a combination of framework and thematic analysis.Results: Analyses revealed four themes: 1) responsibility for resource provisioning rather than performing direct childcare or household tasks; 2) flexibility in gendered divisions of labor to support mothers, even though performing “women’s” tasks could result in reputational harm; 3) responsibility for cultural, moral, religious, and formal education of children; and 4) variation in fathering roles in response to children’s age and sex.Conclusion: Results suggest that direct care measures may not be good measures of paternal investment in these societies, although men do sometimes support their wives with these tasks. Teaching cultural norms, a form of paternal investment ubiquitous across our study settings, may be a key mechanism through which fathers invest in their children’s embodied and social capital, potentially affecting later-life wellbeing.</p>