Abstract
Over the past 20 years, fathers have taken an increasingly greater role in their children’s lives. For decades, research has focused primarily on predictors of mothers’ involvement. However, more recent work has shown that fathers contribute to their children’s development, independently from mothers. Therefore, it is important for research to continue to understand the factors that predict father involvement for both residential and nonresidential fathers. Data from racially diverse fathers (n = 1,112) was used to test how stress affects father involvement in early infancy and whether social support can be protective. Multiple regression analyses examined associations between different types of stress and father involvement, and tested whether social support acted as a buffer. Separate models were examined for residential and nonresidential fathers to see if stress affects residential and nonresidential fathers differently. Results showed that financial stress and perceived stress significantly related to father confidence and tangible support. In addition, perceived stress significantly related to time spent with infant. While there was a significant interaction between social support and perceived stress, the effects were too small to be meaningful. In addition, patterns of predictors were found to be different between residential and nonresidential fathers. These findings show that stress can affect different aspects of father involvement in the first few months of an infant’s life and more work is needed to identify protective factors. This dissertation discussed the implications of these findings for both residential and nonresidential fathers who play important roles in their child’s lives.