Exploring Parental Identities: How Single Black Males Understand Fatherhood in the Absence of Their Fathers

This qualitative study was exploratory in nature and involved the collection and analysis of data from Single Black fathers in Northern California raised without a father in the home. Fathers in our study shared that they navigate their roles as single fathers through trial and error and by making a personal commitment to do what is necessary for the well-being of their children; they refuse to allow obstacle to get in their way of their effort to be a responsible, caring father. The absence of their fathers was a prevalent factor that increased the devotion they have for their children.

Double Disadvantage in a Nordic Welfare State: A Demographic Analysis of the Single Parent Employment Gap in Finland, 1987–2018

This study demonstrates how an evolving negative educational gradient of single parenthood can interact with changing labour market conditions to shape labour market inequalities between partnered and single parents. We analysed trends in employment rates among Finnish partnered and single mothers and fathers from 1987 to 2018. In the late 1980s’ Finland, single mothers’ employment was internationally high and on par with that of partnered mothers, and single fathers’ employment rate was just below that of partnered fathers. The gaps between single and partnered parents emerged and increased during the 1990s recession, and after the 2008 economic crisis, it widened further. In 2018, the employment rates of single parents were 11–12 percentage points lower than those of partnered parents. We ask how much of this single parent employment gap could be explained by compositional factors, and the widening educational gradient of single parenthood in particular. We use Chevan and Sutherland’s decomposition technique on register data, which allows us to decompose the single parent employment gap into the composition and rate effects by each category of the background variables. The findings point to an increasing double disadvantage of single parents: the gradually evolving disadvantage in educational backgrounds together with large differences in employment rates between single and partnered parents with low education explain the widening employment gap. Socio-demographic changes in interaction with changes in the labour market can produce inequalities by family structure in a Nordic society known for its extensive support for combining childcare and employment for all parents.

Custodial Single Fathers before and during the COVID-19 Crisis: Work, Care, and Well-Being

As both paid and unpaid work were disrupted during the COVID-19 crisis, the two roles that working custodial single fathers occupy—breadwinners and caregivers—have intensified significantly. Using two independent sets of interviews, this study examines how custodial single fathers navigated work and caregiving responsibilities prior to COVID-19 and compares them to the experiences of single fathers interviewed during the pandemic. The findings are organized into three key themes. First, men with white-collar jobs experienced less work-family conflict than men with blue-collar jobs. The COVID-19 crisis further widened this divide as lack of flexibility put men with blue-collar jobs in a precarious position in the labor market. Second, the way single fathers arranged childcare varied with the availability of extended family and the coparenting relationship with the child(ren)’s mother. The pandemic significantly complicated these arrangements by removing men’s access to extended family and intensifying already conflicted coparenting relationships. Finally, prior to the pandemic, many single fathers struggled with lack of leisure time and diminished social support networks that shrunk with their initial break from their child(ren)’s mother. The resulting feelings of fatigue and loneliness seeped into men’s psychological well-being. COVID-19 and related social distancing measures further exacerbated single fathers’ isolation.

Family leadership and environmental sustainability: a case of the single fathers in Russia

Nowadays, the traditional perception of the family is changing. However, understanding children preferences and shaping their views of the world still remain the key prerequisites for the environmental sustainability. The purpose of the article is to analyze models of single fatherhood, to study the motivation and structure of factors that determine the involved fatherhood making, the specifics of mother’s and parent family’s influence on the paternal practices implementation. Our research testifies to the fact that single fathers tend to become family leaders and undertake responsibility related to childcare in the context of transforming marital and family relations as well as facing global environmental issues. The results of the study show that single fatherhood is usually a forced situation caused by death or severe illness of the mother, her deviant behavior and leaving the family, deprivation of parental rights, divorce consequences, long-term separation of spouses, use of modern reproductive technologies of surrogacy. It is concluded that the scenarios of the single fatherhood becoming – planned or casual – are associated with the cause of the child appearance in the family. The significant differences are found in the social and cultural capital of the single fathers which might have different impacts on the level of environmental education they can pass on to their children.

BOOK REVIEW: SHEVCHENKO, I. O. (2019), “FATHERS AND PATERNITY IN MODERN RUSSIA. A SOCIOLOGICAL ANALYSIS”, TROVANT, MOSCOW, RUSSIA

Based on the peer-reviewed scientific monograph by I.O. Shev- chenko, the article presents an analytical review of the social practices of fa - therhood in modern Russian society, the phenomenon of lonely fatherhood that is least studied in the sociological community, as well as the issue of divorced fathers and stepfathers. Against the background of many years of sociological research, among the most important issues in the monograph the following are highlighted: Russians’ ideas about fathers and fatherhood; social practices of fatherhood; aisespaternity in families of various structural types. The book shows the evolution of the meanings of paternity as claimed by men of different ages, married and divorced. It defines the anthropological and biological, personal, socio-economic, spiritual, gender meanings of fatherhood and presents the models of paternity: an impersonal father, an authoritarian father, a kind father. The author of the monograph raises an issue of the importance of the father in the life of the child and also manages through analysis of 830 essays written by schoolchildren to build a “live” dialogue between fathers and children. More - over based on 47 in-depth interviews the topic of fathers and children in difficult situations of family breakdown is raised. An image of the substitute father – stepfather is considered, the types of their behavior in relation to the adopted child are highlighted: active, neutral, and passive. The topic of lonely fatherhood, stereotypes of modern society in relation to single fathers is touched upon. Final - ly, among the original plots of the monograph, one can note: the creation of the father’s image in cinema and the analysis of the network communities of fathers. The author of the article concludes that the phenomenon of paternity is multifaceted and contradictory in modern Russian society and that there is the need for its further study in the direction proposed in the reviewed scientific monograph.