Effects of Father Involvement and SES on Externalizing Behaviors at Early and Middle Childhood

Background and Purpose: Children’s behavior problems are generally characterized as falling into two categories: externalizing behaviors (i.e., conduct problems and aggression) and internalizing behaviors (i.e., depression and anxiety). Interest in the effects of father involvement on behavioral outcomes in their children has increased, with researchers finding internalizing and externalizing problems in childhood being linked to various family and parenting factors. Studies have linked father involvement to lower prevalence’s of children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors, however, there is little extant literature on the short-term and long-term impact of ‘early father involvement.’ Lower socio-economic status has also been linked to a higher prevalence of childhood disruptive behaviors, as well as differences in parenting practices, but studies have not assessed the moderating effects of SES on father effects.

Methods: Data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) Study, 1996-2010: United States, were analyzed. EHSRE assessed 3,001 children and their parents at17 sites, representing a diverse national sample, from age 14 months through 5^th grade. Analyses here are based on the subsample of children with 5^th grade externalizing data (794 girls, 828 boys). Variables analyzed included child gender, SES (below 33% of the Federal poverty line (29.4% of the sample) vs. above 33% (70.6% of the sample)), mothers’ reports at child age 14-36 months of frequency of father caregiving, and pre-kindergarten Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) externalizing and 5^th grade internalizing and externalizing scores.  

Results: Boys scored significantly higher than girls on Pre-K externalizing, but significant 2-way interactions of gender by SES showed that 5^th grade internalizing was higher for lower SES girls and higher SES boys, while 5^th grade externalizing was lowest for lower SES boys. Multi-group path analyses indicated that the pathways for children below 33% of the poverty line were significantly different from the pathways for children above that 33% cutoff. A significant direct effect of 14-36 month father caregiving in predicting lower 5^th grade internalizing and externalizing was found only for those children in families below 33% of the poverty line. There were no significant gender differences in father caregiving effects, and these effects were not significantly mediated by father caregiving effects on Pre-K externalizing.

Conclusions and Implications: The present findings confirm the few previous studies showing that greater father involvement is associated with fewer behavioral problems in their children.  For the present analyses, these effects are shown to be significant even for very early father involvement on later child behavioral problems. The significant moderating effect of SES deserves follow up, suggesting that facilitating father parental involvement may be particularly important for the poorest of families, where other caregiving resources are often lacking.