An Alternate Standard for Evaluating American Fathers

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Abstract
Since the mid-1970s social scientists have given unprecedented attention to American fathers. As birth rates have declined and more women have entered the labor force, expectations for men to assume parenting duties and responsibilities have increased, and numerous studies have compared the parenting of men and women. The studies have generally shown that the parenting of fathers is deficient in comparison to that of mothers. In the study reported here a different standard, the parenting of fathers in other societies, is used to evaluate the performance of U.S. fathers. Viewed from a cross-cultural perspective, American fathers seem typical rather than deficient.