The Relative Importance of Paternal Versus Maternal Involvement for Chinese Adolescents’ Gender-Typed Traits

Abstract

Adolescence is a crucial period for gender socialization. While the theoretical link between parental involvement (i.e., the degree of parental engagement in parenting and child-rearing activities) and adolescents’ gender-typed traits (i.e., masculinity and femininity) is clear, the potential different influences of paternal and maternal involvement on boys and girls have yet to be explored. This study examined the moderating role of adolescents’ gender in the relations between parental involvement and adolescents’ gender-typed traits. A total of 512 Chinese adolescents (40.8% boys; Mage = 15.73 years, SD = 1.50) participated in this study and completed self-report measures of paternal involvement, maternal involvement, masculinity, and femininity. The results indicated that both higher maternal and paternal involvement were significantly associated with higher levels of adolescents’ masculinity in the total sample, but only higher maternal involvement was significantly associated with higher levels of femininity. However, multi-group comparison analysis showed that the association between paternal involvement and masculinity was only significant in boys. There were no significant differences between boys and girls in the association between maternal involvement and adolescent femininity or masculinity, nor in the association between paternal involvement and femininity. These findings challenge the narrow view that links the absence of certain gender-typed traits in adolescents solely to the lack of a certain parental figure. The findings highlight the significance of joint participation between fathers and mothers, emphasizing their crucial roles in fostering balanced development of gender-typed traits among adolescents.