Fatherhood is a key but missing component of research on welfare regimes. What do states formally demand from fatherhood across Latin America? Using a novel data set of coded legal and policy provisions for 19 Latin American countries, this article offers a conceptual framework to examine state interventions targeting biological, caregiving and breadwinning dimensions of fatherhood. My findings show that, regardless of how robust their social policies are, most countries presume fatherhood to be complementary rather than co-responsible to motherhood. By making a conceptual, empirical and practical contribution to studying the state regulation of fatherhood, this article contributes to a more comprehensive view of welfare regimes.

Gangs are widely considered major contributors to the high levels of violence afflicting Latin America, including in particular Central America. At the same time, however, the vast majority of individuals who join a gang will also leave it and, it is assumed, become less violent. Having said this, the mechanisms underlying this ‘desistance’ process are not well understood, and nor are the determinants of individuals’ post-gang trajectories, partly because gang desistance tends to be seen as an event rather than a process. Drawing on long-term ethnographic research carried out in barrio Luis Fanor Hernández, a poor neighbourhood in Nicaragua's capital city Managua, and more specifically a set of ‘archetypal’ gang member life histories that illustrate the occupational options open to former gang members, this article offers a longitudinal perspective on desistance and its consequences, with specific reference to the determinants of individuals’ continued engagement with violence (or not).