Comparison of Perceived Fatherhood and Self-Efficacy Across Generations and Gender

A quality father-child relationship is important for the child's social and emotional development, which may affect one's self-efficacy in the future. Research showed that fatherhood attitudes change over time. In the current study, individuals in generations X, Y and Z evaluated their relationships with their fathers retrospectively and their own general self-efficacy and it was examined whether participants' perceived fatherhood attitudes and general self-efficacy levels varied according to their gender and generation they were in. The study data were obtained through survey from 516 participants aged 18-58 living in Türkiye. Participants between the ages of 18-23 were considered as generation Z, 24-43 as generation Y and 44-58 as generation X. The data was collected between April 2023 and May 2023 through scales in an online survey platform. According to the results of MANOVA analyses, perceived fathers' negative emotional approach and father communication attitude differed between generations. Accordingly, perceived fathers' negative emotional approach of generation Z was significantly higher than the score of generation X. On the other hand, the perceived father's communication attitude score of generation Z was significantly lower than the scores of generation X and generation Y. In addition, perceived fatherhood sub-dimensions did not differ by gender. As for self-efficacy, some dimensions of self-efficacy perceptions of generation Z were also found to be lower than generations X and Y. Resistance dimension of self-efficacy was also found to differ by gender. Accordingly, men's resistance scores were significantly higher than women's scores. The results of the study were discussed by considering the general characteristics of the generations and evaluating gender roles. In addition, the possible limitations of the participants' retrospective assessment of their relationship with their fathers were discussed.