This study examined paternal involvement in parenting, the association between parents’ perception of mutual support, and the relation to their children’s well-being before (t1) and after the transition to first grade (t2). Participants were first and second generation immigrant families from Turkey (n = 134). In addition, German families (n = 45) were included for the comparison of paternal involvement. The percentage of highly involved fathers was higher in the German sub-sample (54 %) than in the Turkish sub-sample (38 %), but we found no influence of parents’ education, household income, employment status, or children’s gender. First generation fathers were more likely to be highly involved than second generation fathers. Analyses of the longitudinal data revealed that mothers with highly involved fathers were more likely to report higher marital support. This pattern was less clear for fathers. Children with highly involved fathers reported significantly higher well-being at t1. For t2, a moderator analysis revealed a positive effect on children’s well-being only for those fathers who were both highly involved and reported the highest fathering self-efficacy. Among other variables, we controlled for children’s well-being at t1, their health status, fathers’ work hours and mothers’ marital satisfaction. © Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht GmbH & Co. KG, Göttingen 2016.

Child well-being Marital satisfaction Turkish immigrant families Fathering self-efficacy Paternal involvement

education Germany immigrant household longitudinal study Family Therapy human wellbeing Longitudinal Studies Turkey (republic) German (citizen) coping behavior health status Father-Child Relations social support ethnology Fathers procedures family conflict Self Efficacy quality of life marriage father child relation Humans migrant psychology male Emigrants and Immigrants female preschool child Child, Preschool Child Rearing self concept Parenting Resilience, Psychological social adaptation employment status father gender mother adult major clinical study Turkey Social Adjustment child parent relation Child