Mothers’ and Fathers’ Perceived Engagement in Children’s Care and Schooling in Bangladesh: A Rural-Urban Comparison

Abstract

Couched within the bioecological systems theory, this paper examined whether (i) mothers and fathers differed in their perceived engagement with their school-age children’s routine care, care on demand, academic interaction at home, and academic interaction at school; (ii) mothers’ and fathers’ engagement varied as a function of gender-of-child and rural and urban residence; and (iii) socioeconomic and support variables were associated with fathers’ engagement with their children’s care and academic work in twoparent rural and urban families in Bangladesh. Mother and father pairs from 40 rural and 41 urban families participated in the study. Mothers and fathers were separately interviewed to collect the data. Mothers spent more time in children’s routine care and academic interaction at home than fathers did in both rural and urban families. Urban parents spent more time with their children than rural parents did. While rural mothers spent more time in sons’ routine care and academic interaction at home than they did with daughters, urban fathers spent more time with sons’ routine care than they did with their daughters. Whereas fathers’ age and number of children negatively and length of marriage positively predicted fathers’ engagement in children’s routine care, fathers’ age negatively and length of marriage and extra-familial support positively predicted fathers’ engagement in children’ academic interaction at home in rural families. Findings are discussed in relation to rural and urban fathers’ changing roles in children’s care and intellectual development in Bangladesh.