Social portrait of single fathers: an analysis within the framework of responsible parenthood

The relevance of the study is determined by unfavorable demographic trends - the decline in the population and the childbearing rate of Russian families, which negatively affects the resources of natural reproduction. Such factors as marriage and reproductive attitudes of men and women, maternity and paternity patterns determine the childbearing of Russian families. The presented study contributes to the solution of the following scientific problem - understanding the motivation and attitudes behind men’s marital and reproductive strategies; implementation of the role and functions offatherhood. The purpose of the work is to identify the essential characteristics of the social portrait of fatherhood, namely responsible fatherhood on the example of the analysis of social practices of single fathers. In order to compare the social practices of single fathers and ideal types of fatherhood, we systematized theoretical approaches to the concept of “responsible fatherhood”. Then we compared the ideal types of responsible fatherhood with the social practices of single fathers described by indepth interviews with fathers raising children on their own (the sample included men who are divorced, widowers, and those who have not officially divorced but have been raising children on their own for a long time). The questions for the in-depth interview were formulated according to the following plan: family and reproductive experience of the respondent; motivation and attitudes towards marriage and reproductive behavior, practices of fatherhood realization, needs of single fathers. The obtained data made it possible to characterize the social portrait of single fathers, to reveal the peculiarities of social practices of this category of population and marriage and reproductive behavior.