Systematic review of the differences between mothers and fathers in parenting styles and practices
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Systematic review of the differences between mothers and fathers in parenting styles and practices Yosi Yaffe 1,2
# Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract Parenting is a broad construct that comprises stable and durable attitudes and behaviors regarding child-rearing. Since mothers and fathers play different roles in the family, parenting styles and practices in childhood and adolescence may differ depending on the parents’ and adolescents’ gender. While gender differences in parenting are theoretically warranted, the research literature in this field is considerably limited and lacking conclusive information dealing with this question. Therefore, the aim of this systematic review is to aggregate and synthesize the available research studies containing significant findings on the differences between mothers and fathers in parenting styles and practices. For that purpose, we conducted a systematic search of the PsycInfo, Scopus, Eric, and Web of Science databases, covering literature published from 1990 to 2020. The search was restricted to peer-reviewed studies in English alone. Our findings reveal that mothers as compared to fathers are perceived as more accepting, responsive, and supportive, as well as more behaviorally controlling, demanding, and autonomy granting than fathers. Accordingly, in the studies comparing parents on the constructs of overall parenting styles, mothers were predominantly more authoritative than fathers, and fathers were mostly more authoritarian than mothers (based on both parent and descendant reports). These parental differences established by research from over 15 countries around the globe seem to apply similarly for male and female descendants, while principally not varying by their age. Keywords Mothers . Fathers . Parenting styles . Children . Adolescents . Differences
Introduction The study aims to aggregate and synthesize the research literature on the differences between mothers and fathers in parenting styles and practices in the family. This gender-based issue has been given relatively little empirical attention in the field of family research (Mastrotheodoros et al. 2019; Russell et al. 1998), despite its significance for understanding children’s socialization and parent-child relations in the family. Parenting is a broad construct that comprises stable and durable attitudes and behaviors regarding child-rearing (Smetana 1995, 2017). The most prominent theoretical term used in the literature to describe the substance of parenting and its types is parenting styles (Baumrind 1966), which refers to
* Yosi Yaffe [email protected] 1
Faculty of Education, Ohalo Academic College, Katzrin, Israel
2
Department of Education, Tel-Hai Academic College, Qiryat Shemona, Israel
certain types of parenting that are characterized by distinct attitudes and behavior toward the child and constitute a form of marital climate (Yaffe 2018, 2020b). In fact, the constellation of the degree to which the parent is demanding and responsive constitutes her
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