Addressing the “Absent Father” In Research: How Paternal Attrition, Structural Data Missingness, and Administrative Invisibility Perpetuate Myths and Racism Towards Racially Diverse Fathers

Research on fatherhood has expanded significantly in recent years, yet large data sets used for research that drive social work policy and practice limit our understanding of racially diverse and vulnerable fathers. Large data sets often include missing data--not just a statistical nuisance or unknown parameter but a structural inequity that hinders the field from understanding fathers and supporting families holistically. In alignment with the 2027 SSWR theme, “Social Work Research at the Service of Democracy: Advancing Rigorous Inquiry for the Common Good”, this roundtable confronts the systemic data gaps in data collection and administrative systems that limit rigorous inquiry and fail our research knowledge by excluding paternal voices from the evidence base. Historically, research and services have centered on mothers, resulting in data limitations that exacerbate the underrepresentation of fathers’ lived experiences in empirical research and perpetuate myths that fathers are absent in the lives of children. Father missingness in data results in reliance upon maternal perspectives of disadvantaged families, limiting the development of father-inclusive interventions.

This roundtable session consists of a dialogue with five social work father researchers moderated by a father researcher and administrator about the different forms of data missingness among major national and state data sets including the National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being, the Longitudinal Studies on Child Abuse and Neglect, The Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, Building Strong Families, state Child Welfare Case Services and Case Management Systems data, and the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. Roundtable presenters, with experience in these large data sets, will focus on paternal attrition in longitudinal studies, structural missingness of data by design, and administrative invisibility where data structures are optimized for maternal information, erasing the presence of fathers and leaving fathers undocumented when known to the system. Data collection methods, such as unclear family type categories, lead to caseworker decision-making in data collection that may underrepresent father constellations in the family. Lack of follow-up with data collection and attrition may limit understanding of fathers in families over time. Presenters will elaborate on the distinction between unreported data and data not collected at all.

The roundtable goal is to stimulate a conversation that moves beyond traditional missing data techniques toward reimagining how father-related data are captured and structured. The roundtable concludes by outlining how these data gaps reinforce a service environment that centers mothers by default and weakens the evidence needed to design father-inclusive policies. By identifying these barriers, we aim to promote the creation of a more robust evidence base that engages fathers as vital, ongoing contributors to child and family well-being. The discussion will offer clear implications of how social work researchers can lead the academy in data collection, awareness, and advocacy for fathers to reduce stereotypes of father absence.