Direct paternal investment has benefits on multiple child outcomes, with different effects for sons and daughters.

Father effects on child development in developed countries are still unclear, with inconsistent results often reported. Furthermore, whether these father effects vary depending on context is rarely explored. Previous studies have found that fathers tend to invest more if they are of higher socio-economic position, if the investment is in sons, and if mothers are also investing highly. If these investment patterns are derived from differences in the returns to their investment, we would expect that paternal investment may have greater benefits under these individual circumstances. Using the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, we investigate the effect of direct paternal investment on children’s height, educational attainment and behavioural difficulty whilst controlling for direct maternal investment levels. Furthermore, we test whether the effect of direct paternal investment differs depending on the father’s education, sex of child and level of maternal investment. We find that direct paternal investment has a beneficial effect on all three outcomes, though the benefit only exists for girls in height, and the benefit is larger for boys than girls in academic achievement. In contrast, direct maternal investment is only beneficial against children’s behavioural difficulty, and no context dependence was found.