Preprint Non-Residential Fatherhood and Parenting Self-Efficacy

Growing up without biological father present in the home has been linked to child and adolescent wellbeing and development, but may have an impact that reaches beyond adolescence. Parenting and parent-child relationship quality one has experienced as child or adolescent are predictors of variation in one’s own parenting and similar processes might be detectable for experiences of non-residential fatherhood. However, our understanding of potential longer-term correlates of non-residential fatherhood that also affect the next generation would benefit from multiple-generation data, which are scarce. Moreover, potential mediators and moderators should be tested to further elucidate any association. To this end, we examined the link between non-residential fatherhood in adolescence and parenting self-efficacy approximately 15 years later, using a Bayesian approach that caters for small samples. In addition, we explored the potential role of the relationship between parents within this association. We used prospective, multiple-generation cohort data from the longitudinal TRAILS sample and its next generation spin-off, and included 137 parents (81% female, M age = 29.8) and their first-born children of ~30 months old (56% female). We found no support for an association between non-residential fatherhood at age 16 and later own parenting self-efficacy in emotional availability. Neither was there support for mediation or moderation of such an association by later negative interactions between parents in the data at hand, although we detected a positive link between non-residential fatherhood and negative parental interactions. Yet, it is important to re-evaluate conclusions using Bayesian updating once more data have been collected to further increase the confidence in the findings of this study.