Trajectories of fathers' childcare involvement and child behavioral outcomes

Background Father's closeness and playful behavior influence a child's emotional and cognitive development. In this study, we aimed to assess the long-term association of paternal involvement in childcare at 1-3 years of life on subsequent behavioral outcomes at 8 years of age.Methods Data were obtained from the 2010 cohort of the Longitudinal Survey of Newborns in the 21st century in Japan. We used group-based trajectory modeling to predict the trajectory of total childcare scores in surveys 1, 2 and 3 to determine the overall involvement of fathers in childcare during early childhood. The level of fathers' involvement in childcare was categorized as low, medium and high. Responses from the eighth survey were used to assess child behavioral outcomes using five indicators when the child was 8 years old. Crude and adjusted logistic regression analysis was conducted to estimate the odds ratio (OR) separately for each of the behavioral outcomes of the child.Results Among the 17,027 father-child dyads included in this study, two-thirds of the fathers were of the age group 30-39 years. Compared to low involvement, children of fathers with high involvement in childcare during the early childhood years were less likely to not want to go to school even after adjusting for covariates (adjusted OR, 0.46; 95% CI: 0.32-0.66).Conclusions Children benefit from their fathers' involvement in early childcare activities. To improve a child's well-being, fathers should be encouraged by providing them with a suitable working environment with flexible arrangements and the opportunity to involve in childcare.

Automated summary

This study found that high paternal involvement in early childhood childcare activities is associated with reduced likelihood of negative behaviors in children at 8 years old, such as not wanting to go to school. This highlights the importance of fathers' involvement in childcare for improving child well-being.