Filipino fathers' parenting in the context of household and neighborhood risk: Familism as a protective factor.

OBJECTIVE

Familism, a cultural value that emphasizes strong family connectedness, has been associated with warm parenting behaviors among fathers and may moderate the effects of stress on parenting. However, few studies have examined familism as a protective factor against household and neighborhood risks. This study examined (a) the relations of poor living conditions and neighborhood disorder to paternal warmth and rejection and (b) familism as a moderator of relations between poor living conditions, neighborhood disorder, and paternal warmth and rejection.

METHOD

Low-income urban Filipino fathers ( = 84, = 44.85, = 8.89) completed orally administered questionnaires. Hierarchical regression analyses were used to examine associations between poor living conditions, neighborhood disorder, familism, warmth, and rejection.

RESULTS

Poor living conditions, measured as a composite risk index of housing status, water supply, access to electricity, and food insecurity, were significantly associated with lower levels of warmth. Neighborhood disorder was also significantly associated with greater rejection. Familism was significantly associated with greater warmth, indicating its promotive role in fathers' parenting. Moderation analyses indicate that higher familism was associated with less rejection only at lower levels of risk in living conditions. At higher levels of risk, the association of familism with rejection was nonsignificant.

CONCLUSIONS

The protective function of familism in parenting may have limits at high levels of risk. Interventions for low-income Filipino fathers may need to address reduction of household and neighborhood stressors along with strengthening family-level protective factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).