How Fathers Help their Children Develop

Use this interdisciplinary approach to understand why fathers contribute to child development and wellbeing.

Using economics and developmental science, this book helps us understand the profound influence fathers have on child development and wellbeing. The book offers unique insights into the complexity of fatherhood to students and researchers studying child development, parenting and family studies, social work, or social policy.Fathers influence their children's development in many ways, including financially and emotionally, but the literature revealing how and why is limited. This book brings together theoretical orientations and different disciplinary lenses to the study of how and why fathers matter for children's development. It challenges the commonly held view that fathers are only economic providers and points to the complex interplay between the love fathers have for their children and the money they have (or not) to support them. By integrating developmental science with economics, and drawing on real-life examples from qualitative research, the authors argue that fatherhood is a tale of two stories: love and money.