Men are potentially no less effective as intimate parents than women. Early Child Development research has found that:

Mothers rapidly increasing skills, self-confidence and sensitivity to
newborns develop not from innate gifts but from the steep learning curve in which they are engaged. Typically, in many cultures, they spend dozens of hours with their (awake) infants, much of it alone. Whereas, it is usually the case that the new father is seldom, if ever, alone with his infant or finds himself primarily responsible for the baby’s welfare. There is a gendered learning role in care.

There is now a strong consensus, among developmentalists who have reviewed father-involvement literature, that the more extensive a father’s emotional investment, attachment, provision of resources, and involvement with his children, the more the children benefit in terms of cognitive competence, school performance, empathy, self-esteem, self-control and well-being, life skills and social competence.

However, it would be a mistake to present one model of fatherhood as the ideal, outside a particular context. For example in some poorer African societies, the best off children may be those whose fathers are absent for much of their lives - migrant workers sending income home that can make all the difference to children in terms of physical survival, general health and educational opportunity.

Wider social conditions clearly have a big impact on the extent and style of fathers’ care involvement. Predictors of high care involvement across the world include lack of material accumulation (such as land or money); regular cooperation and participation of husband and wife in economic, domestic and leisure activities; low population density; low polygamy and infrequent warfare.

There is, at least in Western society, a huge cultural shift taking place. Across Europe, 86 per cent of men and 87 per cent of women think fathers should be closely involved in childrearing from the children’s earliest years. In the UK, as in Australia and North America, almost all new fathers want to “do fatherhood” differently from previous generations. They don’t think that caring for children compromises their masculinity and they believe fathers can be just as competent as mothers.

The time fathers spend with their children has increased in many countries. In the United States, research shows father’s engagement (close communication) with their school age children, and accessibility (being nearby during waking hours) has risen. Similar, accelerating, trends are evident in other countries such as Canada, the Netherlands, Finland, Norway, Australia and New Zealand. How far behind are Africa's fathers?

In other countries the situation is different. In Japan and South Korea, for example, paternal involvement is still relatively low. But involved fatherhood is slowly beginning to be promoted as an ideal in these countries. In Japan, increasingly numbers of fathers are witnessing the births of their children. In China, the motto common across South East Asia – “strict father, kind mother” – is beginning to be questioned. And it is believed that the one-child policy will inevitably erode old notions of authoritarian fatherhood, as families become more focused on affection towards their only child.

Do fathers matter? They are critical, according to Patrice Engle, Unicef’s lead official in this field.
“Many fathers are the primary source of financial support for their
children, but they are an important resource in other ways: through time and skills they bring into the household, through the support they provide to mothers, through the networks (friends, workmates and extended family) attaching to them.
Fathers can protect and educate their children, play with and care for them, tell them stories, settle them to sleep, worry about them every day and love them for life. Fathers’ involvement and father investment is one of the greatest under-used sources of support available in our world today.”

There is a need for further research on fatherhood in Africa, where data on fathers is almost non-existent (except for South Africa).

1. The longevity and fertility of fathers;
   
2. Union status and co-residential patterns;
   
3. Religious, ethnic and intra-national differences; and
   
4. Socio-economic factors, employment and poverty statistics.
   

• The impacts of taxation, benefits, childcare and parental leave regimes on family decision-making about the division of labour between mothers and fathers; 

• The roles of fathers in influencing reproductive health outcomes for women and infants; 

• The roles of fathers in influencing children’s health outcomes; and wider Early Childhood Development goals.
  

• The roles of fathers in influencing education outcomes for their children;
  
• The impact of HIV/AIDS on fathering roles and responsibilities; 
• The impact of labour market policies and workplace cultures on the accessibility of flexible ‘family-friendly’ work for men and women, and the degree to which they provide incentives for stereotyped or equitable gender relations;
  
• Explorations of the diversity of men’s thoughts and aspirations in relation to their children and partners to develop greater understanding of what motivates men in families;
  
• Research on children’s perceptions of their fathers and their aspirations for their relationship with their fathers;
  
• Documentation of ‘fair families’, which have adopted more equal models of family responsibilities, and the conditions that have influenced them;
  
• Research on the roles of men in decision-making about family members’ access to education opportunities, health services, transport, finance, and so on;
  
• Time-use surveys documenting the use of time by fathers and mothers across domestic, caring, leisure and working activities;
  
• Research on the impact of policies and legislation related to paternity recognition, divorce, separation, contact and child support on child–father relationships;
  
• An analysis of professional and vocational training for social and health care staff to assess how ‘father-friendly’ it is;
  
• The impact of fathering behaviours on attitudes towards gender among their children; and
  
• Longitudinal studies of fathering across the family cycle, measuring changes in fathering attitudes and behaviour across generations, and the transmission of fathering skills and ideas.