Peer-reviewed article
Psychological well‐being of fathers with and without a child with intellectual disability: a population‐based study.
Emma Langley, Vasiliki Totsika, Richard P. Hastings ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study compared the psychological well-being of 256 fathers with a child with intellectual disability to 10,187 fathers without such a child in the UK, using data from the Millennium Cohort Study when children were 5 years old. Fathers with children with intellectual disability reported slightly poorer life satisfaction and general health, but these differences were small. When accounting for other factors, child behavioural problems, poverty and employment were more important than disability status in predicting fathers' well-being. The study suggests that while some fathers, particularly those experiencing poverty or raising children with behavioural problems, may need more support, simply having a child with intellectual disability does not inevitably harm paternal well-being.
Key points
- Fathers of children with intellectual disability reported poorer life satisfaction and general health compared to other fathers, but the differences were small
- Child behavioural and emotional problems, income poverty and paternal employment were stronger predictors of fathers' well-being than child disability status
- The study challenges the simplistic narrative that raising a child with intellectual disability puts fathers at significant risk of poor outcomes
- Data came from a UK population-representative cohort study with 10,187 fathers without a child with ID and 256 fathers with a child with ID
- Future research should explore how paternal well-being affects long-term outcomes of children with and without intellectual disability
Limitations
The cross-sectional design prevents causal conclusions about how disability affects paternal well-being over time. The small number of fathers with children with intellectual disability (256) limits the ability to detect differences and examine subgroups in detail.
Abstract
BACKGROUND: Few studies have explored the well-being of fathers of children with intellectual disability (ID), despite the significant role that they play in their children's lives. The current study compared fathers of children with and without a child with ID on measures of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, work-family balance and general health) and dimensions of parenting (parenting self-efficacy and parent-child closeness) and then examined whether the presence of a child with ID in the family was a significant predictor of paternal well-being when controlling for a number of father (age, education, employment and residency), child (ID status, gender, behavioural and emotional problems) and family (income poverty and number of children in the household) variables. METHODS: Data were drawn from the third wave of the Millennium Cohort Study, a UK population-representative and cohort study, where the cohort child was 5 years of age; 256 fathers were identified as having a child with ID, with data available for 10 187 fathers without a child with ID. Fathers were compared on the four well-being and parenting outcomes and then multiple regression models were conducted to explore associations between these outcomes and variables identified as potential correlates of well-being. RESULTS: Initial group comparisons showed that there were differences in the well-being of fathers, with fathers of children with ID reporting poorer life satisfaction and general health. However, these differences were small. Regression analyses showed that child behavioural and emotional problems, living in income poverty and paternal employment were more important than disability status in predicting fathers' well-being. CONCLUSIONS: These works add to the limited amount of research on fathers using population-representative data. The current findings are consistent with rejecting a general simplistic and negative narrative that raising a child with ID puts fathers at risk of poorer outcomes. However, some fathers, such as those with children with behavioural problems and living in poverty, may require greater support. Future longitudinal research that explores the impact of paternal well-being on the long-term outcomes of children with and without ID is warranted.