Complexity of Father Involvement in Low‐Income Mexican American Families*

• Author: Ross D. Parke,Scott Coltrane,Michele Adams
• Published date: 01 March 2004
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/j.0022-2445.2004.00008.x
• Date: 01 March 2004

Complexity of Father Involvement in Low-Income Mexican

American Families*

Scott Coltrane,** Ross D. Parke, and Michele Adams

We identify multiple predictors of five types of father involvement in 167 low- to moderate-income two-parent Mexican

American families with fifth-grade children. Analyses show that fathers’ egalitarian gender attitudes and mothers’ education

are associated with higher levels of father involvement. Fathers are more involved in monitoring and interacting with children

when families place more emphasis on family rituals, they are more involved in supervising children when mothers are

employed more hours, and they perform more housework when mothers earn more and the family is under economic stress.

Counter to ‘‘macho’’ stereotypes, Mexican-identified men are more likely than more acculturated men to supervise children and

engage them in conventionally feminine activities. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

When the economy falters as it has in the past few years,

American parents must struggle to make ends meet

and maintain families. Even when the economy is

doing well, as it was in the late 1990s, such struggles are

common among low-income families. Among the groups most

at risk for economic stress, adolescent problems, and school

dropout are Latinos (Hispanics), who are projected to comprise

nearly one-quarter of the U.S. population by the year 2050. Two-

thirds of U.S. Latinos are Mexican Americans, a population

disproportionately composed of two-parent, working-poor

families with unique needs and cultural resources. Though pre-

vious research has tended to ignore this group, in this article, we

draw on this population to investigate multiple components of

father involvement and offer an analysis of predictor variables

associated with higher levels of men’s participation in family

life.

When job markets do not support full employment, the

family lives of marginalized ethnic groups are adversely

affected. Although traditional cultural ideals call for men to be

sole breadwinners and women to be stay-at-home mothers,

contemporary labor markets increasingly require households to

have two earners. The individualism and gender ideals com-

monly associated with women sharing breadwinning and men

sharing child rearing are not prevalent among Latino families.

Instead, such families are commonly described as having high

levels of family cohesion and cooperation (‘‘familism’’)but also

being governed by traditional gender ideals (see Buriel, 1986; Cauce

& Rodriguez, 2001; Gonzales, Knight, Morgan-Lopez, Saenz, &

Sirolli, 2002; Segura, 1992; Vega, Kolody, Valle, & Weir, 1991).

How, then, have recent economic and social changes affected parent-

ing practices in working-class Latino families? We explore some of

the tensions and changes facing Mexican American families and

identify the cultural and labor market conditions associated with

father involvement in low-income and working-poor communities.

By focusing on different components of men’s family involvement,

we also inform methodological and conceptual debates about how to

study fatherhood in diverse settings. Finally, our research can be

used to improve family practice and family policy intended to

encourage the participation of fathers in children’s lives.

Contradictory Cultural Expectations

National surveys report that the vast majority of American

men rank marriage and children among their most precious

goals, and most American fathers say they value their families

over their jobs (Coltrane, 1996). Similarly, most Americans

agree that women should have equal rights to men and that job

discrimination on the basis of gender should be prohibited.

Reflecting this dual agenda for gender equality, 3 of 4 Americans

agree that wives’ and husbands’ jobs are equally important, and 9

of 10 say they should share all aspects of parenting (Washington

Post,1998). Ironically, surveysalso show that American husbands

and fathers perform relatively little housework or child care

(compared to their wives)and that America n husbands and

wives continue to judge unbalanced divisions of family labor as

‘‘f a ir ’’ (Coltrane, 2000). Thus, Americans embrace equal parental

involvement at the same time that they accept minimal family

work contributions from men. Elsewhere, we have argued that

such contradictions reflect longstanding tensions in American

culture dating back to the founding of the nation (Coltrane &

Adams, 2001, 2003; Coltrane & Parke, 1998; Parke & Tinsley,

1984). Tensions between individual rights and family obligations

have surfaced most often in debates about women’s employment,

but as we move into the 21st century, these tensions are increas-

ingly played out in debates about me n, marriage, and fatherhood

(Coltrane, 2001).

Typically missing from these debates is explicit consider-

ation of men who are not White and middle class. In this study,

we move beyond the simple observation that poor men from

minority communities are less likely to be married and to

contribute money to their children, and document how Mexican

American men in two-parent households contribute to their

families in a multitude of ways. In particular, we investigate

the frequency with which they interact with their school-aged

children,document whether they participate in ‘‘feminine’’ gender-

typed activities as well as ‘‘masculine’’ activities, assess whether

they monitor their children’s whereabouts and activities, and

ascertain the extent to which they participate in direct child

supervision and routine household labor. In addition, we specify

the personal, family, social, economic, and cultural factors that

predict father involvement in each of these activities and invoke

theories that might help us understand differential levels of

involvement.

*This research was supported by grants from NIH (MH-54154-01A2)and the

University of California–Riverside.

**Address correspondence to: Dr. Scott Coltrane, Department of Sociology,

University of California–Riverside, Riverside, CA 92521 (scott.coltrane@ucr.edu).

Key Words: families, fathers, housework, Latino (Hispanic), low-income, Mexican

American, parenting.

(Family Relations, 2004, 53, 179–189)

2004, Vol. 53, No. 2 179