A Dialectic of Vulnerability and Resilience: Nonresidential Fathers Living in Poverty in Israel

Abstract

The aim of this study was to explore the experiences of poverty-stricken Israeli nonresidential fathers raising their children in a disadvantaged neighborhood characterized by poverty and hardship. Using a case study design, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 15 nonresidential fathers living in poverty. The interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed, and two themes emerged. The first focuses on the challenges and barriers to the fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives. The second focuses on the elements that create support networks in the neighborhood context. Our findings suggest the importance of adopting an intersectional perspective on manhood and fatherhood. This could facilitate a better understanding of the complex experience of nonresidential fathers living in poverty by exploring issues of power relations and oppression while remaining sensitive to differences both within and among social groups.

Introduction

The increasing number of nonresidential fathers in Israel facing economic difficulties highlights the importance of examining the various aspects of their identity, including how the unique environmental context in which they raise their children shapes and influences their experience of fatherhood. Research has established that fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives has evolved—from performing a solely instrumental provider function to becoming a more involved and nurturing parent, referred to as the “new father” (Pleck and Masciadrelli 2004; Pleck and Pleck 1997). Despite this shift, this specific group of fathers often faces significant obstacles to fulfilling their role as parents, hindering their ability to be part of their children’s lives. Recognizing the significance of nonresidential fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives, beyond traditional expectations, this research aims to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences in order to set treatment-targeted goals and to assist these fathers in developing confidence for meaningful parenting.

Literature Review

Paternal Involvement

Nonresidential fathers are parents who live apart from one or more of their children full-time (Jones and Mosher 2013); the involvement of such fathers in their children’s lives is the most widely researched realm of their particular status (Pleck 2010). Studies show that paternal involvement is usually beneficial to children’s development (Cabrera, Shannon, and Tamis-LeMonda 2007; Lee et al. 2019). Lamb et al. (1985) proposes a three-component model for examining the extent of fathers’ involvement. The first component is the extent of a father’s direct interaction with his children (e.g., caretaking and joint activity); the second is the extent to which the father is available to his children; and the third is the extent of the responsibility that the father takes for his children by making resources available to them.

Nonresidential fathers living in poverty are further burdened by the constraints of poverty on their ability to be involved parents. Doherty, Kouneski, and Erickson (1998) propose an ecological model of paternal involvement addressing the influence of contextual factors on the extent of the fathers’ involvement. According to this model, factors such as employment opportunities, economic situation, resources and challenges, cultural expectations, social support, and ethnicity all have a considerable impact on fathers’ involvement and must be taken into consideration when examining the specific category of nonresidential fathers living in poverty (see also Dyer, Kaufman, and Fagan 2017).

The literature on paternal involvement has focused largely on nonresidential fathers from low-income communities (Connor and White 2011). The personal involvement of these fathers is viewed as crucial to their ability to play an important role in their children’s cognitive and emotional development and mental health (Cabrera, Shannon, and Tamis-LeMonda 2007; Flouri and Buchanan 2003). Nevertheless, studies indicate that nonresidential fathers living in poverty are generally less involved in their children’s lives than fathers who are not poverty stricken (i.e., Guarin and Meyer 2018; Pilarz, Cuesta, and Drazen 2020). For example, Guarin and Meyer (2018) examined the involvement of nonresidential fathers living in poverty in the United States, finding that low-income nonresidential fathers were less involved in their children’s lives than nonresidential fathers with greater financial resources. Another qualitative study conducted in the U.S. examines the experiences of nonresidential fathers lacking economic resources and found that despite their desire to be involved in their children’s lives, economic difficulties led to a sense of defeat as fathers (Vogel 2020). A similar sense of defeat is expressed in a study of nonresidential fathers in South Africa, who reported that mothers and their families valued fathers’ financial contributions more than any other type of involvement and made such payments mandatory before allowing fathers' access to their children (Lesch and Kelapile 2016).

Israeli society is characterized by a strong family orientation with high marriage rates, relatively low divorce rates, high birth rates, and a low average age of marriage (Donath 2015). The heteronormative family form, consisting of a husband and wife and their children living under the same roof with the husband serving as the primary provider, is held up as a cultural ideal in Israel as well (Hacker 2017; Harris 2008). Whereas Israeli familism allocates a central place to children and mothers, some have argued that space for fathers is more limited (Strier and Perez-Vaisvidovsky 2021). This presents challenges for nonresidential fathers living in poverty, including racism, poverty, marginalization, and social exclusion—all of which are risk factors for their psychological well-being (Ratele et al. 2012). Previous research documents that all these elements make it difficult for such fathers to maintain involvement in their children’s lives (Roy 2006; Hunter 2006) and can lead to reduced personal involvement (Dyer 2005).

Despite these potential challenges, studies emphasize that nonresidential fathers still play an important paternal role (Coates and Phares 2014). Although most studies in the context of poverty have focused on the individual and the family, the present study focuses on poverty in the neighborhood context. The neighborhood has the power to create positive surroundings for parents and provide them with cohesion-based social and environmental support (e.g., Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn 2000). It has been found, however, that parents living in impoverished neighborhoods deal with significant challenges and demands that impaired the efficacy of their parenting. Ethnographic studies examining fatherhood in distressed and impoverished neighborhoods have shown that such fathers tend to perceive parenthood as an attainable and decisive social role that is an essential part of their identity (e.g., Edin and Jon 2013). A qualitative study in the U.S. that explores the involvement of low-socioeconomic-status African American nonresidential fathers living in impoverished urban neighborhoods reported that the fathers felt responsible for their children and wanted to be involved in their lives, despite their socioeconomic circumstances (Threlfall, Seay, and Kohl 2013). Moreover, close physical proximity to family, friends, and neighbors, and the backing they provided, resulted in valuable support networks that were critical for the ability of nonresidential fathers living in poverty to be involved in their children’s lives (Coates and Phares 2014; Roy and Dyson 2010).

The literature review on nonresidential fathers living in poverty reveals a complex, multifaceted picture of their parenthood experiences. The present study aims to examine these fathers’ parenting experience to understand the different elements that influence and shape their parenthood. Examining the parenting difficulties and challenges faced by nonresidential fathers living in poverty and the elements of resilience and protection in their parenthood can provide a more comprehensive picture of their fatherhood experience.

Theoretical framework

Intersectionality was introduced and elaborated by the Black feminist legal scholar Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw (1989), who was the first to apply the term (Carastathis 2014). Crenshaw’s work draws attention to how two systems of inequality in the lives of Black women—race and gender—combine to produce unique social locations and experiences (King et al. 2019). Collins and Bilge (2020) highlight the uniqueness of intersectionality as an analytic tool that enables us to understand and analyze the complexity in the world not only by examining the interactions of the categories but also by focusing on social inequalities, such as race and gender.

In the present study, we adopt intersectionality as our main prism for the heuristic purpose of asking questions raised by the data, as it offers a window into thinking about the significance of ideas (Collins 2019, 286). We explore how the categories of manhood, fatherhood, and poverty intersect and shape the experiences and constructs of nonresidential fathers living in poverty. Intersectionality complements the concept of hegemonic masculinities in that it stresses the interactions between gender, class, and other differentiating categories and, at the same time, articulates different power structures and their reciprocating constructs (Christensen and Larsen 2008). Significant importance can be assigned to examining how these categories intersect and influence one another due to the tendency to perceive these categories as natural, divinely ordained, or rational and thus beyond dispute (Calasanti and King 2015).

Resilience was another prism used to explore the experience of the participants. Although definitions of resilience can vary, it is most often defined as reduced vulnerability to environmental risk experiences, the overcoming of stress or adversity, or a relatively good outcome despite acute distress (Ungar 2011). Thus, we decided to focus on vulnerability, oppression, and marginalization, but at the same time to adopt a strengths-based resilience approach and to explore resistance and agency (Clark et al. 2013). Applying an intersectional lens to resilience research allowed us not only to better expose multiple layers of inequity and disadvantage stemming from intersecting forms of oppression, but also to encourage the inclusion of complex and strengths-based understandings of individual and social resilience-promoting processes (Njeze et al. 2020). Within this theoretical framework, we posed two research questions: 1) What are the experiences and ascribed meanings of nonresidential fathers regarding their fatherhood and involvement in the lives of their children? 2) What is the role of the neighborhood context in the construction of their experiences and meanings?

Methods

The research was conducted in an impoverished neighborhood in Israel, which is the study participants’ natural setting. We used a case study design that is described as an “empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context, especially when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not evident” (Yin 2003, 13). The case study design is considered suitable for studying excluded populations and has the potential to go beyond cause-effect relationships by providing “full” and “rich” explanations of how people perceive their lived experiences (Gläser and Laudel 2013).

The neighborhood selected for the present study is in a major city in southern Israel that was established in the 1950s as housing for immigrants, mainly Jews from North Africa. Most of the neighborhood’s residents cope with numerous hardships on the individual and family levels, along with the hardship of living in an impoverished neighborhood replete with deficiencies, such as rundown infrastructure, construction flaws, neglected sanitation, high crime rates, and a lack of responses to environmental nuisances. Most of the early residents of the neighborhood who could financially afford to leave it have done so because of its precarious conditions. According to the case study design employed in the present study, we seek to generate explanations of data from particular contexts that may be useful in understanding other settings in the future (Andrade 2009).

Participants

The participants in the present study included 15 nonresidential fathers between the ages of 21 and 55 years (M = 36), all of whom were living in poverty. All participants lived in the neighborhood and were recruited through personal connections followed by snowball techniques (Creswell and Creswell 2017). The first author, who grew up in the neighborhood, was simultaneously an insider and an outsider regarding the research site. On the one hand, her prior knowledge of the way of life in the neighborhood, and her acquaintance with some of the study participants, made her an insider. On the other hand, as an educated woman living in a middle-class neighborhood in another city, she was also an outsider.

The first author had a preliminary acquaintance with six of the fathers participating in the study. This allowed the development of a trust-based relationship that increased the fathers’ cooperation and encouraged openness, which is a critical aspect of studying underprivileged and minority communities (Pustulka, Bell, and Trabka 2019). This acquaintance also helped her recruit additional interviewees and acquire information that is inaccessible to total outsiders. However, we remained cognizant of the complexity of this personal relationship, which required sensitivity and thorough self-reflection, and bracketing at each stage of the research (Hayfield and Huxley 2015).

All participants were nonresidential fathers; 11 of them were divorced, whereas the other four had never been married to their children’s mother. At the time of the interviews, five of the participants were in new couple relationships but were not married. All fathers had at least one child between the ages of 0 and 8 years. The median child age was 7 years, and the mean number of children per family was 3.1. All the fathers reported severe financial difficulties and lower than average income. In addition, 11 fathers reported living in rented apartments in the neighborhood and four lived in apartments that were inherited from their parents. All participants spent time with their children in accordance with court-mandated visitation arrangements. 10 of the fathers disclosed that they also saw their children at other times. Nine participants had children who lived in the neighborhood, whereas the children of the other six lived elsewhere in the city. All participants lived near close family members. Five of the 15 fathers dropped out of school after junior high, and 10 completed 12 years of schooling, including seven who graduated with a matriculation certificate. All the study participants identified as Jewish—11 as traditionally religious and four as secular.

Data collection

The first author conducted in-depth, semi-structured interviews between 2017 and 2019 at locations chosen by the participants. Each interview lasted between 1 and 1.5 h. Four interviews took place in the fathers’ homes and 11 were conducted in public settings in the neighborhood. A tour of the neighborhood streets (field observation) was conducted with each father individually. The field observation helped us map the locations chosen by the fathers during the tour to illustrate the influence of the neighborhood on their lives and parenting. For example, the participants showed the interviewer their homes and their proximity to the homes of their families of origin, or places with which they felt a connection in the neighborhood. Throughout the tour, notes were recorded in a field diary that was later used during the analysis and writing stages. The field diary was used during the field observation to increase the reliability of the study, as per the case study design, by providing “means producing results that can be trusted and establishing findings that are meaningful and interesting to the reader” (Trauth 1997).

The interview guide was designed after three pilot interviews and focus groups with fathers in the neighborhood, and covered four main topics: 1) The fathers’ experience of parenthood in the neighborhood context; 2) The fathers’ experience of the dynamic of their identities and its relationship to their involvement in their children’s lives (e.g., “How does your experience of being a nonresidential parent coping with financial difficulties influence your involvement in your children’s lives?”); 3) Experiences relating to the challenges of fatherhood in the neighborhood; and 4) The study participants’ experience of the dynamics between the challenges to their fatherhood and sources of support in their lives (e.g., “What helps you cope with the difficulties you experience in your fatherhood?”). The interview questions were open-ended, giving participants the opportunity to raise additional topics spontaneously, regarding which the interviewer asked probing questions. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim and were supplemented by a demographic questionnaire regarding sociodemographic data.

Analytic strategy

In the analysis of the case study at hand, we adopted an inductive approach based on the steps suggested by Braun and Clarke (2006). In the first stage, to become familiar with the data (immersion), we read the interviews several times. The second stage consisted of open coding to identify basic units of meaning, followed by axial coding, in which we established links and hierarchies among and within the codes (subcategories). For data analysis, we used Dedoose (2014), a web application for mixed-methods research. We attempted to establish trustworthiness through peer debriefing and an audit log. Peer debriefing involved independent and joint analysis of the data by both researchers. This provided different perspectives for analyzing the raw data and served as a basis for interpreting the findings until consensus was reached. The audit log included detailed documentation kept by both researchers throughout the various stages of the study.

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval was granted by the Ethics Committee of the Hebrew University’s School of Social Work. In accordance with their guidelines, participants signed an informed consent form and confidentiality was ensured throughout all stages of the study, including the use of pseudonyms and the omission of all identifying details from the final report and from this article.

Findings

The analysis of interviews with nonresidential fathers living in poverty identified two main themes. The first theme focuses on challenges and barriers to fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives, whereas the second theme focuses on promoting support networks in the neighborhood context. Regarding the first theme, the findings highlight the difficulties and challenges these fathers face in their parenting, including various obstacles that prevent them from being present and actively involved. However, the second theme suggests that these same obstacles and challenges can also produce protection and resilience through the fathers’ relationships with their community and neighborhood. The findings indicate that these connections to the neighborhood and to the community can be a helpful way for fathers to stay present and function in their children’s lives. The findings provide valuable insights into the experiences of nonresidential fathers living in poverty and the ways in which they navigate challenges and obstacles.

Challenges to Fatherhood

The study participants reported that the emotional experience of dealing with the challenges and obstacles limited their involvement in their children’s lives. The fathers’ intersecting identities as men, nonresidential fathers, and people living in poverty create a complex and specific fatherhood experience, which the fathers described as consisting of accumulating layers of oppression caused not by a singular element but by numerous interwoven systems. They were further challenged by social expectations regarding manhood, fatherhood, and fathers’ involvement with their children, leading to a strong and ongoing sense of defeat vis-à-vis their parenthood.

The participants described experiencing dissonance between their desire to be involved in their children’s lives and their ability to do so in practice. As a result, their fatherhood tended to be accompanied by guilt feelings, as expressed by David, a 39-year-old divorced father of four (ages 12, 10, 7, and 4):

I didn’t fight for custody like most fathers. I knew ahead of time that I’m not really capable of raising them because of my situation […] so I gave them up and thought about myself, and about how to survive my life, with its difficulties, at the cost of a minimal amount of time spent being a father […] It’s not that I think of them as a burden. They are my children and I love them, and I don’t want to lose them. It’s just that my life is hard, and that distances me from them.

David described an internal conflict rooted in the gap between the social expectations of him as a nonresidential father and the reality of a life replete with poverty-related difficulties, which hindered meeting these expectations. The expectations-versus-reality gap created a feeling of moral guilt surrounding his fatherhood, alongside the fear of losing contact with his children. Ethan, a 37-year-old nonresidential father of three (ages 12, 9, and 5) described how being a low-income parent was a barrier to his involvement with his children:

I understood that I cannot invest and spend time with my children like other fathers, because I have to work around the clock to pay off my debts […] In all honesty, I just feel that I do not have the privilege of being a father to my children like other fathers because of my troubles and what they demand of me […]. Actually, my basic right as a father is being denied to me throughout the years of my children growing up. I am missing out on them, and it is not easy for me at all.

The study participants perceive their poverty-related difficulties as a constant oppressive barrier to involved fatherhood. Ethan describes how the intersection of his identities intensifies and inflames each of the elements in his fatherhood experience, creating deep emotional distress and a severe sense of defeat as a man and as a father.

Fathers described this emotional distress as creating feelings of loneliness and fear, which undermined the participants’ perception of their self-efficacy to contend with the poverty limitations while simultaneously functioning successfully as fathers to their children. Ben, a 35-year-old divorcee and father of three (ages 13, 9, and 8), said:

I put them to bed at night and feel alone with it. Fears that I have, regardless of being a father; fears that are always there because of the situation, about how to make ends meet […]. How to pay alimony, how to pay the rent each month, how to get to a point where I can buy them something now and then. And this affects my fatherhood, because I don't know how I manage to keep all this up and still be a normal father who is involved with his kids and good with them.

The participants described their ability to support their children, in compliance with the dominant male ideology that requires men to ensure economic security and well-being, as impossible because of their financial difficulties. Ben’s remarks reflect his strong desire to be involved in his children’s lives, especially as a nonresidential father, as well as the ever-present poverty that prevents his full involvement.

Besides the fear and anxiety caused by the intersectionality of being both nonresidential and poor, the participants repeatedly referred to their emotional pain, arousing feelings such as shame, guilt, and self-blame as a result of the social stigma and inherent societal judgmentalism vis-à-vis their masculinity and fatherhood. Tom, a 29-year-old divorced father of two (ages 6 and 2), explained:

I feel as if the world is judging me because of my situation […] I am automatically defined by society as a failed father—not only because they are growing up without a constant father figure, but also in material terms. I have nothing to give them. There’s no nice car and no work to take pride in at this stage […] I think that, in the eyes of others, I am not fulfilling my role, and that perhaps I was even irresponsible for bringing children into the world to such a state.

These men’s inherent difficulty to meet society’s normative gender expectations as fathers and breadwinners significantly undermines their self-image as men and fathers. In many cases they internalized these expectations and were preoccupied with their perceived “failure” as men and fathers.

This sense of injury was sometimes also expressed by the participants’ children, who would occasionally get angry and blame them for their poverty and their failure as men and fathers in their lives. This was conveyed by Arthur, a 34-year-old divorced father of two (ages 11 and 7):

I feel as though they are angry at me […]. When we argue, they often take advantage of my situation and use it against me, to hurt me. I feel as though they blame me for how things are; they say hurtful things about the lack of cash and the fact that I don’t own an apartment or give them enough money. I think that, deep down, it embarrasses them, which comes out when they get angry. This behavior is a powerful reminder of my difficulties.

Arthur describes how his feelings of shame, guilt, and self-blame are heightened by his children’s insults and accusations. This illustrates the unique complexity with which these fathers must cope. The social degradation that emerges leads to a sense of damaged fatherhood and masculinity. However, these fathers resist the social discourse that often classifies them and their children as on the margins of society and even as damaged or broken, as expressed by Ron, a 37-year-old father of three (ages 11, 7, and 5):

It’s true that I have a lot to cope with in life. The divorce wasn’t easy—leaving home, moving away from the kids, and the downward spiral to my present financial situation […]. But that says nothing about the kind of father I am […] I am a great dad, and it makes me sad that people automatically think that if things look a certain way on paper, then the children are miserable victims and I’m a bad father […] I’m an abandoning father or I don’t make an effort, and everything else people think about us.

According to Ron, contrary to the negative societal tendency to view non-residential, poverty-stricken fathers as neglectful, abandoning, and even harmful men and fathers, he, like other fathers in this study, resists this image. The interviewees stressed their self-image as good men and fathers—they talked about their responsibility, commitment, and desire to be involved in their children’s lives. Yet, the need to contend with the negative social judgment of their particular type of parenthood reinforces their sense of anguish and frustration.

This intersection of multiple identities among the participants (men, nonresidential fathers, living in poverty) apparently leads to a complex fatherhood experience, characterized by feelings of guilt, fear, and self-blame. These painful feelings are intensified by social judgment, which degrades their self-worth, and a negative perception of the role of masculinity in their parenting.

Elements Promoting Networks of Support

Participants also discussed the various elements that promote their support networks, which fathers in this study perceive as helping them cope with challenges to their fatherhood. Analysis of the interviews revealed three such elements: close proximity to the family of origin, living in the neighborhood and belonging to the local community, and friendship and belonging to the peer group.

Close proximity to the family of origin

The fathers described the engaged presence of their families of origin as facilitating their involvement in their children’s lives, despite the many challenges to their fatherhood. Noah, a 39-year-old father of three, described how this proximity to his family of origin helped him find balance in his role as a father:

It is thanks to my parents and siblings that I am able to function as a father to my children […] The fact that I have no money or time to spend with them because I work so hard, or a permanent and normal home […] makes it difficult for me to be their dad. On the other hand, my family is there, and they save the day […] I feel that their presence in our life is what makes it possible for me to be a decent father to my children.

The fathers’ closeness to and relationship with their families of origin appears to enable them to take an active part in significant events in their children’s lives, as illustrated in the next quote by Jonathan, a 34-year-old father of three (ages 9, 7, and 6):

On my daughter’s fifth birthday, I wanted to throw her a party […] but since I didn’t have much money or a normal home, I felt there was no way I could do that for her. I was afraid it would turn out to be miserable and embarrassing for her […] My family pulled out all the stops and saw to everything. Lots of food and a clown. My sister invited children from the kindergarten. I was so touched, and my daughter was so happy. It allowed me to feel like a good father, as significant in her life.

Jonathan explains how poverty, which prevented him from fulfilling his role as a father, was mitigated by his proximity to his family of origin. This involvement supported the participants’ fatherhood in two ways: first, through practical assistance in fulfilling their role and remaining engaged in their children’s lives; and second, through the emotional support that relieved their sense of shame and paternal inefficacy.

Living within the neighborhood and belonging to the community

Although the participants defined their neighborhood as impoverished and distressed, they nonetheless described it as a community that serves as a social network and provides space for their fatherhood. This sense of containment is expressed in their decision to continue living in the neighborhood despite its limitations, as expressed by Adam, a 38-year-old divorced father of three (ages 14, 11, and 7):

It was easy to choose where to rent an apartment and to raise my children during the time they spend with me. I was obviously going to stay in this neighborhood, which I know. I grew up here and it has always been part of me. This is just the place where I feel strong and protected […] This neighborhood, for me, in spite of all its disadvantages, is my childhood landscape. It is the most familiar and accepting place in my life. By being here with my children, I feel like I can be myself and therefore be a better father to them.

The neighborhood environment, described as familiar, safe, and protecting, enables the fathers to experience an autonomous and authentic identity and a sense of unconditional belonging. Longstanding familiarity with the neighborhood strengthens their sense of safety and appears to give them a feeling of wholeness about their different identities, which in turn has a positive effect on their fatherhood.

Michael, a 29-year-old father of two (ages 6 and 4), describes how the community support influences his fatherhood:

I think that I owe much of my success as a father to the people who live in this neighborhood […]. Here, in the neighborhood, it is normal to be myself, in this situation, and to be a father to my children. There are people here who know me and understand my situation. They are like me in many ways. It feels like my children, and I are not alone, like we’re always surrounded by good people who are like us and accept us.

The fact that the fathers’ identities resemble those of other people in the community, in addition to the sense of belonging and acceptance, appears to help them to feel whole and contributes to their fatherhood experience.

Friendship and belonging to the peer group

The analysis of the findings revealed that friendships with other men and fathers living in the neighborhood can relieve the sense of loneliness. These men perceived their friends as a source of strength based on a shared, similar identity, as expressed by Sean, a 34-year-old father of two (ages 12 and 7):

I think that everyone needs a place where he can vent about all the difficulties of his life. The fact that my friends live here, close by in the neighborhood, and we spend a lot of time together, helps me to be a dad […]. A lot of them are in the same situation as me, so we talk about it and share—get through it together. I can’t, for example, talk to my children about not making ends meet because it’s not their job to help me with that; but I can talk about it with my friends, and I feel that this stabilizes me.

The feeling of belonging and mutual support—and the similar identities they share with their friends, with whom they can talk about fatherhood-related issues—helps the fathers cope with the challenges and loneliness that are inherent to their situation.

Another element that surfaced in the interviews was the advantage enjoyed by the children’s mothers as residential parents in the eyes of the authorities and welfare services. This dynamic exacerbated the fathers’ sense of injustice and abandonment, as described by David, a 39-year-old divorced father of four (ages 12, 10, 7, and 4):

I feel like the authorities don’t really count us as fathers because, first of all, the child’s mother gets all the support and protection. I think that’s a kind of discrimination against fathers, favoring the mothers—the fact that my friends gave me direction and a shoulder to lean on, because they know about the financial difficulties first-hand and about suddenly being a divorced father, really helped me. They were like a system that gave me support and advice.

Although the fathers’ sense of isolation was worsened by their experience of neglect by the authorities and welfare services, the support and advice of their friends who were also fathers strengthened their resilience and ability to cope.

The participants’ perception of the role of the neighborhood and community in their fatherhood is central to this study. The findings show that the neighborhood environment, the family of origin, and friends in the peer group emerged as support networks for the fathers and had a strong influence on them, giving them a sense of strength, protection, and belonging.

Discussion

Employing a case study design, this study inductively explored the fatherhood experience of nonresidential fathers living in poverty and raising their children in a disadvantaged neighborhood characterized by poverty and distress. Our analysis identified two primary themes: one that focuses on the challenges and obstacles to parenthood expressed by the fathers with regard to their intersectional identities and deprived social location, and another that emphasizes the fathers’ perceived networks of support that helped them cope with their fatherhood challenges. These networks stemmed from proximity to their family of origin, residence in the neighborhood and community, and friendship with and sense of belonging to a peer group.

The findings, which add to the developing body of knowledge about men and fathers from non-hegemonic groups, echo a recent study by Strier and Perez-Vaisvidovsky (2021), who argue that Israeli fathers from non-hegemonic marginal groups are viewed as nonfunctional and often bear sole responsibility for the insufficient care and lack of resources burdening their families. Similarly, the fathers in the present study experience a deep sense of degradation regarding their manhood, masculinity, and fatherhood, stemming from the societal criticism, stigmatization, and judgmentalism vis-à-vis their identity as men, fathers, and nonresidential fathers living in poverty. Moreover, the social oppression experienced by the fathers leads to severe emotional vulnerability characterized by fear, guilt, and self-blame, with which they must cope as part of their parenting. Fathers’ unique social locations and experiences prevent them from being fully involved and functional in their children’s lives and highlight the critical need for a broader and deeper exploration of their situation.

Intersectional analysis allows us a better understanding of the fatherhood experience by viewing fathers’ sense of identity as constantly challenged by societal judgmentalism regarding their masculinity and fatherhood, and by the negative societal tendency to view non-residential, poverty-stricken fathers as neglectful. Connell and Messerschmidt (2005) argues that the patriarchal dividend by which power, honor, and status are concentrated in the hands of men is not equally distributed, and that there is a distinct hierarchy among different patterns of masculinity. Similarly, the fathers in the present study repeatedly described experiencing their masculinity as inferior and weakened because of the marginal aspects of their identity. Moreover, our findings indicate that many of the barriers to these fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives are deeply rooted in and affected by the unique intersection of their identities—their gender identity as men, their marital status as divorced men, their legal status as nonresidential fathers, their socioeconomic status as individuals living in poverty, and the geographical and environmental aspects of living in an impoverished neighborhood. Such intersection places them in a unique, deeply marginal, and vulnerable social location in which they have to contend with multiple oppressive forces at the same time. These marginal identity aspects culminate in a disadvantaged parenthood in which they are forced to contend with economic as well as social barriers to their masculinity, which creates doubt about their ability to care for their children. This experience of social oppression leads to severe emotional vulnerability, since it targets the personal and cultural shortcomings of these fathers and tends to ignore barriers that result from context and their social location in society.

Alongside the vulnerability and the many challenges, our analysis portrays the neighborhood, despite its impoverishment and deficiencies, as a protected and empowering space for the fathers that encourages self-agency and resilience in their lives. Consistent with previous studies that argue that many families, especially those living in poverty, receive support in their parenting from family and friends (e.g., Adams et al. 2006), our analysis shows that the neighborhood provides support networks for the fathers, stemming from proximity to the family of origin, a sense of community, and warm supportive relationships with friends and peers.

Nevertheless, the environmental elements can both strengthen and hinder paternal resilience (Felner and DeVries 2013). According to Norris et al. (2008), community resilience is more than the sum of resilient individuals and may be guaranteed only by a strong and abiding sense of community. The community resilience experienced by the fathers may have originated in the neighborhood’s unique mix of ethnicities and immigration statuses, its sociocultural constitution, and its impoverished elements. The close relationships among the residents enhance their community cohesion and solidarity. The study participants experienced this as resilience and support for their fatherhood.

Consistent with previous studies (Coates and Phares 2014; Roy and Dyson 2010) in which social support was shown to increase the likelihood of greater involvement in children’s lives, we found that the three support networks in their community contributed to the participants’ sense of efficacy regarding being more present in their children’s lives, as well as to their resilience.

Resilience in significantly difficult life circumstances, especially when living in poverty, is influenced by the context in which an individual is embedded (Ungar 2011). Theron and Theron (2013) describe communities and families as a support network that becomes a bedrock of positive adjustment in such situations. This sense of resilience can be achieved by maintaining close and supportive relationships with parents, siblings, mentors, peers, and neighbors (Daro and Dodge 2009). Similarly, our findings demonstrate a link between fathers’ experience of self-agency in their fatherhood and a sense of belonging and acceptance by the people in the neighborhood and community, which mitigated the impact of the barriers to their fatherhood and facilitated their involvement with their children. For example, the study participants indicated that close proximity to their family members living in the neighborhood helped, first with practical assistance in fulfilling their parental role, and second with emotional support that alleviated some of the stress of the multiple hindrances to their fatherhood. The participants also reported that their friends with similar identities in the neighborhood were a source of support in combating their sense of abandonment, discrimination, and exclusion from their interaction with the social services.

In addition to community resilience, our findings indicate a strong sense of individual resilience in their fatherhood. Bonanno (2005) defined individual resilience as the individual’s ability to maintain a stable level of functioning despite difficult life events and circumstances. Throughout the interviews, the fathers emphasized that in addition to their many difficulties, they also experienced a sense of individual resilience and pride that reinforced their desire to be involved in their children’s lives—a desire driven by their recognition that their presence in their children’s lives is vital.

Our findings also emphasize the importance of taking into consideration the environmental contexts of nonresidential fathers living in poverty when working with this population. The perception of the neighborhood, and its various components, as constituting a source of protection, strength, and resilience for these fathers demonstrates how the intersectionality of components of identity on the micro level are embedded in the macro social structure (Brah and Phoenix 2004). Tsafti et al.’s (2021) examination of non-hegemonic, marginal Israeli gay men who are fathers through surrogacy shows that geographical location influenced their acceptance within the local community. In the study in question, the dominant and monolithic perception of the “periphery” as a locus of homophobia was challenged by the fathers’ reports, in which the peripheral space emerged as a “centralized periphery” by embracing a pluralistic approach to new family frameworks, such as gays and family through surrogacy. The findings of the present study emphasize the importance of strengthening the well-being, resilience, strength, and agency of these fathers, especially in view of their social stigmatization.

This study had several limitations. As qualitative research, sample bias was a potential limitation because interviews were conducted only with fathers who agreed to take part. Another limitation was the researcher-participant power differential; although the interviewer originated from the neighborhood under study, she is a middle-class, educated woman, which may have influenced the participants’ responses. Finally, as in any other qualitative research, the findings are limited to the study’s geographical and national contexts and cannot be generalized, even though certain aspects may prove relevant to other contexts.

Conclusions

The present study aimed to gain a more nuanced understanding of the difficulties and challenges faced by nonresidential fathers living in poverty and the protective elements that aid them in their role as parents. The fathers’ intersectional identities as nonresidential and living in poverty shape their parenting experiences and lead to multiple challenges and barriers that hinder their involvement in their children’s lives. However, the study also revealed that the community context and the neighborhood, despite being distressed, play an important role in the fathers’ resilience and confidence in their fatherhood that strengthen their relationship with their children.

In conclusion, the findings of this study suggest that professionals could benefit by adopting an intersectional perspective to gain a broader view of the vulnerability and resilience of nonresidential fathers living in poverty. By considering the intersections of different identities and social locations and alternating between micro and macro levels, professionals can better support and strengthen these fathers’ involvement in their children’s lives. Additional research is recommended―to replicate these results in other contexts and further explore the unique nuances of this population.