This research project aimed to explore the barriers to unmarried fathers’ involvement in the sharing of parenting. It had five overall aims:

• To review the literature relating the broader Irish context of shared parenting.
• To review the literature on shared parenting in unmarried families, with a particular focus on the impediments to unmarried fathers’ involvement in shared parenting.
• To identify, describe and review shared parenting interventions in the international context designed to facilitate / support unmarried fathers and evaluations of these interventions.
• To identify interventions and projects in Ireland that are relevant to the aims of the research and to review any evaluations of these.
• To interview a number of unmarried fathers to explore to their day to day experiences of sharing parenting or seeking to share parenting.

The research was commissioned by Treoir and funded by the Community Foundation of Ireland from May-September 2018.

Research Outputs

Kiely, E. and Bolton, R. (2018) Unmarried Fathers in Ireland: An Examination of the Barriers to Shared Parenting, available at: shared parenting report

The report executive summary is available here

The report was launched by TD Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail Spokesperson on Children and Youth Affairs) in Dublin 3^rd December 2018.

Project Team

Dr Elizabeth Kiely (Principal Investigator) e.kiely@ucc.ie

Dr Robert Bolton (Research Officer)