The wellbeing of fathers is usually addressed in terms of the influence of father involvement on the wellbeing of the child or family (Allport et al., 2018; Sarkadi et al., 2008), or around perinatal depression in fathers when transitioning to parenthood (Garfield et al., 2014; Ndzi and Holmes, 2024; Younis et al., 2024). Earlier studies comparing the wellbeing of fathers and mothers addressed wellbeing through depression, physical health, and self-esteem, and its associations with time spent with children and household chores (e.g., Blair and Hardesty, 1994). The conceptualization of fathering has since become more sophisticated, going beyond time spent with children or in the household, to encompass affective, cognitive and behavioral facets, along with the quality of father-child relationships (Cabrera et al., 2018; Lamb et al., 1987; Lamb and Oppenheim, 1989; Palkovitz, 2019; Pleck, 2010), and the wider socio-cultural context (Volling and Palkovitz, 2021). These aspects are reflected in fathers reading with their children, which constitutes a positive engagement activity, where, for example, the quality of father-child language exchange is more important than its quantity (Rowe et al., 2017), and father-child reading offers a space for choices, affective connection, and cognitive exchange (Cutler, 2023).

Parental wellbeing can be mediated by positive aspects, such as purpose in life, psychological needs, and positive affect, and by negative aspects, such as strained finances, partner relationships, and negative affect (Nelson et al., 2014). These influences can vary between fathers and mothers, with fathers experiencing greater life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and meaning, along with less depression than do mothers (Nelson-Coffey et al., 2019) or non-father men (Nelson et al., 2013); these maternal-paternal patterns are beyond the present scope, but they are introduced to highlight the importance of addressing fathers specifically. Surprisingly little evidence exists on the holistic, non-clinical wellbeing of fathers themselves, with much of the work focusing on the relationship between wellbeing and involvement. For example, increased father involvement is linked with the psychosocial health of fathers (and of mothers and children), including depressive symptoms, personal wellbeing, and self-efficacy (Mallette et al., 2021). It is also associated with fathers’ affective/emotional communication while playing with their children (Lewis et al., 2009), with higher parenting competence (which is closely related to self-efficacy), and with feelings of closeness with their children (Ehrenberg et al., 2001). Taken together, this suggests that wellbeing and self-efficacy interact in shaping father-child interaction and engagement.

Self-efficacy, or confidence in one’s ability to carry out an action (Bandura, 1982) such as parenting, consists of feeling a general sense of competence in parenting across a range of beliefs: for example, feeling able to engage in specific activities like reading, feeling competent in parenting roles such as teaching something, playing with, or loving and supporting one’s child. Fathering self-efficacy can support wellbeing through mechanisms such as parenting stress reduction (Schoppe-Sullivan et al., 2021; Sevigny and Loutzenhiser, 2010), social support for new fathers (Gaillot and Wendland, 2024), and family climate (Bandura et al., 2011). In addition, father-targeted approaches can support key aspects of fathering. For example, fathers of children in neonatal intensive care provided with knowledge and skills by nurses showed improved parenting confidence and knowledge during the hospital stay, and more importantly, at 4–5-year follow-up (Hearn et al., 2020), which included increased involvement and feelings of closeness (Clarkson and Hearn, 2021). Furthermore, when father-specific information and resources are lacking, father self-efficacy decreases (Gaynor et al., 2024).

These elements of psychosocial and affective engagement, along with parenting competence, connect with the three core psychological needs that support positive functioning across aspects of wellbeing and across cultures (e.g., Chen et al., 2015; Disabato et al., 2016; Martela and Sheldon, 2019). Basic psychological needs defined within self-determination theory constitute the extent to which individuals feel that the three basic psychological needs are satisfied: a sense of competence or feeling capable, a sense of relatedness or feeling close or connected with others (belonging), and a sense of autonomy or feeling in charge of or responsible for one’s own actions (Deci and Ryan, 2000, 1985; Ryan and Deci, 2017, 2000). In the daily life of fathers as individuals, these components are manifest in feeling capable of undertaking activities in life and work, such as taking care of responsibilities or knowing how to interact with a child (competence); a sense of care and feeling connected with others (belonging); and a feeling of having choices, such as life-work balance or choosing activities (autonomy).

In light of the foregoing, the aim of this study is to address children’s literacy with fathers, along with father wellbeing and self-efficacy, to guide father-specific information for literacy development with their children, and support key affective, cognitive, behavioral, and relationship aspects of fathering. Based on the existing literature, we hypothesized that (a) fathering self-efficacy would be associated with wellbeing, and (b) that fathering self-efficacy and wellbeing would be associated with positive beliefs about literacy and with positive engagement in literacy activities.

The present work reports on the wellbeing and self-efficacy dimensions of a father-child home reading study carried out with culturally and linguistically diverse families with at least one child aged 4–6 years in Abu Dhabi. Furthermore, while there are numerous wellbeing tools, one key element of the present study was to address the wellbeing of the individual in the context of aspects of life and work relevant to fathers as individuals; a subgoal was to test a wellbeing scale applicable to fathers. To preempt the results, we find that fathering self-efficacy is associated with father wellbeing. Furthermore, fathering self-efficacy is associated with engagement in activities that support literacy development, but not with beliefs about literacy.

Individuals identifying as fathers of a child/children aged 6 years or under living in Abu Dhabi, a multicultural and multilingual city in the Gulf region (N = 225), accessed the questionnaire, and 162 responded.

The study was carried out in accordance with the WHO’s Declaration of Helsinki with informed consent, and was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Emirates College for Advanced Education (RP-209-2023, 25 February 2023). Because this portion of the study was carried out anonymously, no identifiers were collected (names, IP addresses, etc.), and informed consent consisted of participants selecting the option to participate (or not) after being presented with the study information. In addition, participants could exit the survey at any time and skip any questions they chose. Potential participants were invited to contact the research team with any questions prior to proceeding, in which case the research team could identify a potential participant. However, the team had no way of knowing whether the individual had chosen to proceed. Invitations containing the survey link and brief information about the study were sent from the institution’s Research Office to the university community and affiliated communities, along with wider advertisement on community groups. Sending the ad from a university could bias the sample toward more educated participants, however, only one participant reported being a professor, and most professions were not associated with university roles.

The questionnaire consisted of eight main sections and was administered online via Qualtrics. Questions appeared in English and in Arabic. The 8 sections consisted of (1) fathers’ demographic information (10 questions), including age, nationality, education, employment status, occupation, number of children with their ages and gender, time spent interacting with children on weekdays and weekends separately, plus an open-ended questions on activities carried out with children; (2) Home and father-child language practices (three questions); (3) Beliefs about children’s reading (nine questions on a 4 point Likert Disagree-Agree, plus “I don’t know”); (4) Reasons for reading with their children (11 options); (5) Barriers to reading with their children (15 option selections, including “other”); (6) Frequency of positive engagement activities known to support language and literacy-development carried out with their children (six questions on a 5-point Likert (Rarely, A few times per month, about once a week, several times per week, daily) and enjoyment of reading (two questions on a 5-point Likert (try to avoid it, do not enjoy it, enjoy it, enjoy it very much); (7) Wellbeing across Life and Work (26 questions on a 5 point Likert Almost none of the time – Almost always); and (8) Fathering self-efficacy (20-questions, 5 point Likert Strongly disagree – Strongly agree).

Consistent with the purpose of this study, the present work reports on the sample demographics and survey items related to father wellbeing and its associations with self-efficacy, beliefs about children’s literacy and positive engagement in literacy-supporting practices. In the context of children’s literacy and language development supported by father-child shared reading, where a sample of fathers participated in workshops on reading with children, mixed-methods findings addressing father-child home language practices, with reasons for reading, and barriers to reading are published elsewhere (Gallagher et al., 2025).

Responses were examined, and of the initial responses, 122 participants completed all sections relevant to this study (the latter portions of the survey). The other participants responded to earlier portions of the questionnaire but stopped responding after one of the literacy-related sections (i.e., sections 3, 4, 5, 6). For the 122 participants, there was no consistent pattern of unanswered questions, other than two participants not responding to questions regarding literacy-supporting activities (section 6; one did not respond to any questions - questionnaire completion of 86%, and the other responded partially, with questionnaire completion of 90%). Three additional participants did not respond to the last two Direct Care questions or the Financial Responsibility questions of the FSES, which also constituted the last 6 questions of the questionnaire (89% questionnaire completion). Two participants completed 1/3 of the wellbeing items (different portions, 75% completion). All others responded to 94% or more of the questions, with more than half (63%) of the participants responding to all questions. Two questions pertaining to time spent interacting with children per day on (1) weekdays and on (2) weekends, seem to have been interpreted differently: many responded per day (e.g., 2 h), but others seem to have responded for the week/weekend overall (e.g., 30 h). Accordingly, values beyond 8 h per day were removed, but this eliminated almost half the responses, so time with children was not included in the analyses. The data for reading beliefs, literacy activities, the FSES, and the wellbeing scale (Being Well in Life and Work) did not meet assumptions of normality; appropriate tests and corrections were used and described below.

Analyses were carried out using Jamovi.² For each of the scales, reliability analyses for each section/scale using Cronbach’s α were carried out, along with descriptive statistics. Within a given scale, repeated measures ANOVAs were run to compare levels across subscales; where assumptions were violated, a correction was used on the effects (Greenhouse–Geisser or Huynh-Feldt, according to the test value), and a Bonferroni correction on the post-hoc comparisons. The structural validity of the wellbeing scale in the present context was evaluated using Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA with Maximum Likelihood extraction and Oblimin rotation), internal consistency measures, and descriptive scale analyses. Convergent validity was tested by running Pearson correlations between the wellbeing scale and the FSES. To ascertain that all items contributed sufficiently to the literacy scales in this context, confirmatory factor analyses (CFAs) were run for each.

To assess father involvement in positive engagement, two generalized linear models were run to test the contribution of self-efficacy and wellbeing (subscales as independent variables) to the overall score of the positive engagement literacy activities, and also to the item regarding reading paper books, as it is a highly pertinent marker of engagement with children for language and literacy development. To assess the contribution of father self-efficacy to father wellbeing, a generalized linear model was run with the self-efficacy subscales as predictors of wellbeing. Generalized linear models were selected over regression models because the residuals were not normally distributed (p < 0.05 on the Shapiro–Wilk and Anderson-Darling tests), except for self-efficacy and literacy engagement.

As the study focuses on the positive engagement of fathers in children’s literacy development and its association with father wellbeing and self-efficacy, results of the positive engagement activities that support literacy are addressed here through CFA (item loading threshold of 0.5). Of the 8 items in this scale, 5 loaded, yielding good reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.80), so an overall mean score was based on these 5 items. Items and their loadings are shown in Table 1. The items that were removed for weak loadings, consisted of frequency of play (0.45), reading e-books or magazines (0.38), and enjoyment of reading with one’s child (0.42). The items, their means, and loadings are shown in Table 1, along with scale reliability. Mean frequency of engagement in activities that support literacy development (Figure 1A) was close to once a week at 2.82 ± 0.087, and reading paper books or magazines was slightly more frequent than a few times per month at 2.64 ± 0.11, with a wide range of frequencies.

Parental beliefs about reading can be related to their engagement in literacy activities, and questions about beliefs were categorized as either supporting literacy and language development or not. Of the nine questions, eight loaded onto the model, with five reflecting supportive beliefs (used as a subscale score), and three non-supportive beliefs (used as a second subscale score). The item pertaining to reading favorites over and over did not load. Item categories, items, their means and loadings are shown in Table 2, along with scale reliability based on Cronbach’s α. The subscale of beliefs supportive of literacy yielded good reliability (α = 0.81), whereas the subscale of non-supportive beliefs did not (α = 0.58), and was not used in further analyses. Mean strength of beliefs about reading (Figure 1B) that are supportive of language and literacy development was near “agree” at 3.85 ± 0.09, and strength of beliefs that are not supportive were centered between “disagree a little” and “agree a little” at 2.46 ± 0.08. In addition, there was one significant but very weak (0.18) correlation with one aspect of wellbeing (Self) and is therefore not considered, and no significant correlations with any other aspect of wellbeing, self-efficacy, or with the overall engagement in literacy-development activities.

To evaluate fathering self-efficacy and its association with the wellbeing of fathers, The Fathering Self-Efficacy Scale (FSES) was used in the current context. It yielded excellent reliability (Cronbach’s α = 0.918). The repeated measures ANOVA indicated an effect across subscales [F (1.64, 191.86) = 15.3, p < 0.001], and means out of 5 ± SE for each of the three subscales are shown in Figure 2. Levels were highest for Positive Engagement (4.14 ± 0.59) compared to Direct Care (3.79 ± 0.58; p < 0.001) and Financial Responsibility (3.85 ± 0.84; p < 0.001); the last two were similar to each other. The total mean was 4.02 (±0.53).

Data were factorable with numerous stronger intercorrelations > 0.3, and no evidence of multicollinearity (no bivariate r’s > 0.80). Bartlett’s test of sphericity was significant at p < 0.001, and the sampling size was good as indicated by Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy of 0.85. The Parallel Analysis indicated 3 factors explaining 46.9% of the variance, and the Scree plot (Cattell, 1966) revealed plausible solutions at 3 and 4 factors. Extractions were tested on these numbers of factors; the pattern matrix with the interpretation that was clearest with the framework, included four factors, and the final solution is shown in Table 3. Of the 26 original items, five did not load at the 0.40 threshold (items 6, 11, 16, 23, 24, 26), and items 2 and 21 did not fit their co-loading factor items, so all these items were dropped from the solution. The solution consisted of 18 items, loading onto four theoretically consistent factors and explaining 59% of the variance. Overall, model fit measures indicated a good fit with an RMSEA of 0.058 (CI 0.028–0.08; RMSEA is considered good at < 0.06 and adequate at <0.08), a TLI of 0.93 (adequate at >0.90 and good at >0.95); the chi square was significant [χ² (87) = 118, p = 0.014] but the χ²/df ratio remained under 2, which is considered good (Hu and Bentler, 1999).

Scale correlations and convergence. Bivariate correlations are shown in Table 4. Correlations between the wellbeing subscales (bottom-right triangle) yielded positive associations ranging between 0.43 and 0.67 (all p < 0.001), with strong correlations between each of the subscales and the overall wellbeing score (total: mean across all items) of 0.75–0.92 (all p’s < 0.001). Correlations conducted between the FSES subscales and the Wellbeing subscales yielded positive associations ranging from 0.36 to 0.64 (all p’s < 0.001).

Wellbeing levels are shown in Figure 2. The repeated measures ANOVA indicated an effect across subscales [F (1.72, 325.86) = 16.8, p < 0.001] and means out of 5 ± SE for each of the four wellbeing subscales indicated fathers being well with oneself (3.92 ± 0.06) and their sense of social connection (3.78 ± 0.08) were similarly (p = 0.07) near a lot of the time. The sense of life balance was lower at about half the time (3.26 ± 0.09, all p’s < 0.001). Work wellness (3.70 ± 0.09) was between about half the time and a lot of the time; its level was similar to that of social connection, lower than the sense of self-wellness (p = 0.02), but higher than life-balance (p = 0.004). The mean for wellbeing overall was 3.74 ± 0.06.

To assess whether (1) self-efficacy and (2) wellbeing could predict either positive engagement literacy activities (total score) or reading with children, generalized linear model analyses indicate that self-efficacy but not wellbeing were associated. Specifically, self-efficacy on the FSES was supportive of the positive-engagement literacy score, with the model explaining 7.5% of the variance (R² = 0.0754), through Financial Responsibility χ²(1) = 5.77, p = 0.016, but not Positive Engagement (p = 0.28) or Direct Care (p = 0.07). Parameter estimates indicate that Financial Responsibility had a positive effect on engagement in literacy development, B = 0.28, SE = 0.12, z = 2.40, p = 0.018, 95% CI [0.12, 0.45], whereas Positive Engagement and Direct Care were not (PE: B = 0.21, SE = 0.19, p = 0.281; DC: B = −0.36, SE = 0.20, p = 0.073). The same pattern of predictors was found for reading paper books or magazines with children, with the model explaining 8.1% of the variance (R² = 0.081) through Financial Responsibility χ²(1) = 4.20, p = 0.04, but not through Positive Engagement (p = 0.11) or Direct Care (p = 0.26). Financial Responsibility had a positive effect on engagement in literacy development, B = 0.34, SE = 0.16, z = 2.05, p = 0.043, 95% CI [0.2, 0.65], whereas Positive Engagement and Direct Care did not (all p > 0.1). Wellbeing was not predictive of engagement in literacy activities (total score) or in reading with children (all p’s > 0.1).

Self-efficacy subscales of the FSES predicted wellbeing with the model explaining 46.2% of the variance (R² = 0.462) through Positive Engagement [χ²(1) = 30.74, p < 0.001] and Financial Responsibility [χ²(1) = 6.90, p = 0.009], but not Direct Care (p > 0.1). Parameter estimate effects on wellbeing were positive for the FSES’ Positive Engagement (B = 0.60, SE = 0.11, z = 5.54, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.39, 0.80]) and Financial Responsibility (B = 0.17, SE = 0.07, z = 2.63, p = 0.010, 95% CI [0.04, 0.29]).

One of the subgoals of the present study was to evaluate a wellbeing questionnaire relevant to fathers as individuals. Results from the Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) yielded a four-factor structure across 18 items: a sense of Self, a sense of Social Connectedness, a sense of Life-Balance, and a sense of Work Satisfaction. The sense of Self incorporated items related to personal feelings including affective understanding (except for #2 “I easily get stressed”), items underlain by competence (except #16 “I find it easy to complete my work”), and an item based on autonomy regarding being able to make our own decisions in life. This suggests that for fathers, overall affect, competence, and the ability to make life decisions (autonomy) come together in their sense of self, and that the satisfaction of competence is prominent for father wellbeing. This is consistent with the associations between wellbeing and fathering self-efficacy in the present work, and in previous findings of father self-efficacy and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (Bouchard et al., 2007; Fortin, 2023). Congruently, the items addressing stress and work completion did not load, likely because of their situational occurrence (i.e., stress is frequently elicited by external factors, as are work tasks), and while external factors, including stress, can affect wellbeing (e.g., Wong et al., 2021), they do not seem associated with fathers’ personal feelings of themselves. Having a balanced life (Life-Balance) was associated with cognitive aspects of wellbeing involving autonomy fulfillment, such as comfort with life, having enough time for oneself, and feelings of work-life balance. This autonomy-related pattern was interesting, because, of the other items more directly associated with autonomy, only two loaded onto other parts of the scale. The pattern of one item loading “I prefer doing things with others” with another not loading “I prefer to do things independently” (item 26), could have been associated with dependence and lesser autonomy. However, the interpretation is more likely related to feelings of connection with others (relatedness), reflecting the local culture of knowledge sharing (Rao et al., 2022) and moderate collectivism in the UAE (Pelham et al., 2022). The other two autonomy-associated items pertaining to decisions about activities in daily life and at work, did not load, which is coherent with the items on stress and work-completion not loading; fathers likely view these elements to be external to their understandings of themselves or their sense of balance. The pattern of loadings for Social Connectedness involved relationships with others across life and work, consistent with the importance of social support to the wellbeing of fathers (e.g., Nelson et al., 2014) and of warm relationships to the satisfaction of psychological needs (Deci and Ryan, 1985, 2000; Ryan and Deci, 2000, 2017). However, somewhat surprisingly, feeling close to one’s family did not load; closeness with family can involve feeling connected, but can also carry a sense of responsibility or duty through fathers’ sense of family provision (Sevigny et al., 2016), and accordingly, this item was not associated with the other items of the construct, which carried stronger links to mutual relationships. Work Satisfaction encompassed items associated with cognitive evaluation such as career satisfaction, and with a sense of belonging at work, consistent with previous findings of wellbeing at work (Olafsen et al., 2021). Confirmatory factor analysis could not be run due to sample limitations, but the structure obtained here was consistent with the fathering self-efficacy scale – FSES (convergent validity) and explained almost 60% of the variance (ideals are between 60% and 70%). Considering the extensive cultural diversity across the numerous nationalities and backgrounds in this sample, with varying cultures and contexts, this percentage of explained variance is relatively robust. The structure of the questionnaire needs to be reaffirmed through confirmatory factor analysis with larger samples and across other contexts, but the preliminary structure is likely to apply more widely given the cultural diversity of the present sample, with varieties of English, Arabic, and other languages. This is consistent with previous reports that satisfaction of the three core psychological needs feeds into positive functioning across dimensions of wellbeing and cultures (e.g., Chen et al., 2015, Disabato et al., 2016; Martela and Sheldon, 2019). In addition, an analysis of wellbeing in the UAE defined through life satisfaction (based on Gallup data spanning 10 years), showed an overall life satisfaction evaluation of 70% of their scale (Lambert et al., 2020), which is comparable to the overall wellbeing of fathers in the present study at 75% of our BWLW scale.

As father wellbeing can be associated with fathering self-efficacy, these were evaluated, and findings indicate that the overall wellbeing of fathers and their fathering self-efficacy were relatively high. Fathering self-efficacy was highest for positive engagement activities with children, followed by slightly lower levels of direct and indirect care via financial responsibility. In terms of wellbeing, perceived self-wellness and social connectedness were highest, with slightly lower work wellness, and the sense of life balance was lowest. The wellbeing of fathers was supported by fathering self-efficacy, mainly by Positive Engagement and to a lesser extent by Financial Responsibility, but not by self-efficacy in Direct Care of children.

This is consistent with previous work indicating that increased involvement in direct care and household chores could be associated with decreased psychological health (Blair and Hardesty, 1994), whereas aspects of fulfillment of indirect care, such as financial responsibility, are important to fathers (Pleck, 2010; Sevigny et al., 2016). Findings from large-scale analyses of the wellbeing of individuals in the region, shows wellbeing associated with income and with positive engagements in life, such as donating (Lambert et al., 2020), which can be considered a form of indirect care (to society), and which suggests that fathers may value indirect care for their children and more widely. In terms of aspects of wellbeing, the perceived sense of self-wellness and social connectedness were highest for fathers, with slightly lower work wellness, and the lowest was the sense of life-balance, which comprised items such as “I have enough time for myself”. Finding that the sense of social connection in wellbeing was high, is also consistent with the large-scale work in the local context (Lambert et al., 2020). For fathers, work on the benefits of social support for father psychological wellness (Nelson et al., 2014) and for father self-efficacy and involvement with children (Bakermans-Kranenburg, 2022; Fortin, 2023), has focused on social support from the co-parent, but we highlight here that a sense of social connectedness through reciprocal relationships with friends, work, and general relatedness, seems to contribute to father wellbeing. Supporting fathers with what is relevant to them is consistent with fathers expressing the need for father-specific support (Gaynor et al., 2024) and from the lasting benefits of father-targeted training (Hearn et al., 2020; Clarkson and Hearn, 2021).