How Unwanted Pregnancy for Fathers Impact Their Engagement with Young Children in Fragile Families?

Background/Purpose: In recent years, significant attention has been paid to women’s attitudes about the wantedness of a pregnancy. Researchers have found that mothers’ pregnancy wantedness is not only a significant predictor of future maternal commitment and responsiveness, but is also strongly related with children’s outcomes. However, very few studies have explored fathers’ pregnancy intentions, and how they can impact paternal engagement and children’s outcomes. 

To cover the existing research gap, this study aims to test if unwanted pregnancy for fathers is associated with less paternal engagement with young children, and if fathers with unwanted pregnancy intentions tend to change their levels of engagement over time. 

Methods: This study uses the nationally longitudinal data-Fragile Family and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWB), which is a birth cohort study of nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities between 1998 and 2000. The study uses fathers’ baseline reports on their pregnancy wantedness and their 1-year, 3-year and 5-year reports on paternal engagement activities with young children. 

Fathers’ pregnancy unwantedness was measured by two questions: (1) When you found out that baby’s mother was pregnant, did you think about her having an abortion? (2) Did you suggest that she have an abortion? Father’s engagement with young children was assessed by a 4-item scale adapted from Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment. Fathers were asked about the number of days per week that they engaged in the four activities with children-singing songs, reading stories, telling stories and playing inside.

Results: Results of the multilevel modeling analysis suggest that unwanted pregnancy for fathers is significantly associated with less paternal engagement with young children. And fathers with pregnancy unwantedness are not likely to change their relatively low level of engagement over time. In addition, a range of covariates like fathers’ race, marital status and income are included to investigate the various factors that may account for fathers’ engagement. All the three covariates have been found to have statistically significant effect on fathers’ engagement with young children. 

Conclusions and Implications: The study findings indicate the necessity of considering fathers’ pregnancy wantedness in assessing paternal engagement with young children. Professionals who work with fragile families should explore possible programs and services to enhance fathers’ engagement with young children, and promote children’s positive outcomes.