Change and Stability in the Paternal Role Among Palestinian Fathers Living in Israel

In the current study, we expand the understanding of paternal involvement in the Arab world and studied paternal involvement among Palestinian fathers living in Israel. To address cultural and sociopolitical contexts, we investigated the paternal role in relation to modernization processes characterizing Palestinian society in Israel (education, tradition, and religiosity). To capture the variance in the paternal role, we assessed it as a multifaceted construct involving three dimensions: direct childcare, household chores, and taking care of bureaucracy and finances. Sixty-eight Palestinian couples participated in the study. Participating parents separately completed a questionnaire assessing parenting role division. In addition, participating fathers completed questionnaires assessing paternal religiosity, and traditionality. Results showed that among the different involvement types, Palestinian fathers are most involved in home-related financial and bureaucratic tasks (i.e., outside tasks). Compared to bureaucracy and finances, paternal involvement in direct childcare tasks was lower, and involvement in routine housework was the lowest. Among the modernity variables, fathers’ tertiary education, but not religiosity or traditionality, predicted increased paternal involvement in childcare tasks and routine housework. The study results suggest the continuous prominence of traditional gender role division among Palestinian fathers living in Israel and indicate a slight change among fathers with higher education. The relative prominence of indirect forms of paternal involvement found in our study highlight the importance of evaluating paternal involvement as a multifaceted construct involving both direct and indirect care tasks in collectivistic and traditional societies.