Understanding the State Regulation of Fatherhood in Latin America: Complementary versus Co-responsible

Introduction

References to fathers and fatherhood pervade Latin American mainstream and social media with stories about child support battles, custody wars, ‘deadbeat’ dads and ‘free-loading’ mums. Permeating these narratives are embedded societal norms and expectations regarding paternal responsibilities. What do states in Latin America currently demand from fathers and fatherhood in terms of allocations of time and money? How do family policy and family law regulate parental roles and their interactions with states and markets? What are the most relevant variations across the region?

More than 70 per cent of children in seven otherwise heterogeneous Latin American countries (Chile, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru) are currently born to unmarried mothers, suggesting a sharp disconnect between reproduction and marriage.¹ At the same time, the enormous proportion of children in Latin America for whom paternal duties and rights are disengaged from partnerships makes the region an ideal place to explore fatherhood in the presence and in the absence of legal and informal conjugal relations.

Statecraft around fatherhood remains largely unexplored – particularly in the context of welfare regimes, and in comparison with the ample literature on policies targeting mothers/motherhood and the politics of maternalism.² Globally, the scant knowledge on fatherhood regulations that has been integrated into the literature on welfare regimes is based on family policy, yet it has left aside family law, where much of the regulation of fatherhood is codified.³

This article makes a conceptual, empirical and practical contribution to studying the state regulation of fatherhood. Drawing from an interdisciplinary literature, I bring together the biological, caregiving and breadwinning dimensions of fatherhood as established in family policy and family law. My findings show that, regardless of the robustness of social policies, most countries presume fatherhood to be complementary rather than co-responsible to motherhood, and enforce these dimensions accordingly.

Below, I highlight the current voids found in the literature on how welfare regimes address fatherhood in Latin America. I then propose a conceptual framework to explore this statecraft regardless of the specific laws and policies deployed. Next, I move through an explanation of the methodology and on to findings. I conclude with policy implications and challenges ahead.

Disjointed Parts: Welfare Regimes, Fatherhood and Family Law

Welfare regimes address the...