Where Are You Daddy?: An Exploration of Father Involvement in Chinese Families in Canada and Mainland China

Abstract

To address the levels of father involvement to meaningfully portray Chinese Canadian and Chinese families in their everyday lives, our study of fathers with three-year-old children used time diaries (two, 24 hour account of the fathers’ work- and non-workdays). We also explored how culture and immigration may have influenced fathering behaviors in two contexts, Canada and Mainland China. Based on the Lamb and colleagues’ (1987) father involvement model, we examined various dimensions of father involvement, with a particular focus on engagement (i.e., playing with and caring for their children) and accessibility. Regardless of country, Chinese fathers were actively engaged with their young children. They spent significantly more time playing with their young children than engage in childcare activities, especially Mainland Chinese fathers. Fathers’ proportionate time for engagement (i.e., percentage of their available time allocated to engagement behaviors) revealed similar results. Chinese and Chinese Canadian fathers also spent considerable amounts of their time at home, being accessible to their families, and doing household chores. These fathers also revealed that they spent time eating together as a family, regardless of type of day and country. The present study provides a current portrayal of Chinese fathers’ everyday lives and supports the claims that Chinese fathers perceive their fathering roles asmore egalitarian attitudes toward parenting and parental involvement.