Despite an abundance of research studies on public policies related to child care, the focus of the research has been almost exclusively on the role of mothers, ascribing the caregiving responsibility to women. Historically, public policies have been based on the traditional assumption that mothers are caregivers and fathers are breadwinners. However, there is no empirical evidence that mothers are the exclusive contributors to child care. Fathers may be able to provide child care equally well, and in fact, growing number of fathers want to increase their involvement in child care. Current pubic policies, however, do not seem to provide opportunities for fathers to increase their involvement, which lead to imbalanced allocation of caregiving role between fathers and mothers. This is especially true for poor fathers with limited financial asset. Recent research findings show that poverty results in low levels of paternal involvement. The imbalanced role distribution may negatively affect family cohesiveness and stability as well as increase burden, stress, and depression of the poor parents. How families manage child care is very important not only for promoting child well‐being but also for maintaining the family’s emotional, functional, and marital (or relationship) balance. Two major issues have not been discussed much in the previous research on public policies and child care: first, how public policies influence paternal involvement in poor families or what implications they may have for the poor fathers; and, second, how fathers can participate in child care other than financial contribution. Since poor families are more likely to be susceptible to public policies, there is a need to examine what influences public policies have on poor families. Although dimensions of paternal involvement include affective, nurturing, and financially supporting roles, current and historical public policies were mainly focused on the financial responsibility. In discussing paternal involvement, if focused only on the financial responsibility, there is little room for poor fathers’ involvement. The purpose of this study is to increase our understanding of the paternal role of poor fathers in its relation to public policies. This paper will: (1) review the recent and historical research literature in order to identify the impact of public policies on the paternal involvement styles in poor families; and (2) discuss implications for social work interventions that will help poor fathers to improve their paternal involvement in child care. Fathers in poor and vulnerable families may benefit from social work interventions to achieve expected paternal involvement in child care. Key Words: “U.S. public policy,” “poor families,” “fathers,” “paternal involvement,” “child care,” “social work intervention”