By Carol Church, Writer, Family Album
Reviewed by Heidi Radunovich, PhD, Department of Family, Youth, and Community Sciences, University of Florida
In the early-80s film “Mr. Mom,” the dad of the family loses his job, so his wife goes back to work while he stays home with the kids. But dad’s role is mostly played for laughs; in the end, he returns to work.
In the thirty years since this movie was made, how much more common have stay-at-home fathers become? A 2013 paper in the Journal of Family Issues offers some insight.
A Small Increase in Numbers
Researchers looked only at households where the mother worked 35 hours a week or more and the father did not work at all. (There are many more households where fathers take at least some of the responsibility for child care.) Using this standard, however, the proportion of households with a full-time stay-at-home father is still quite small, increasing from 2% in the late ‘70s to about 3.5% today.
Motivations Have Changed
However, they did find a major change in the reasons fathers gave for being at home. In the 1970s, only 1% of stay-at-home dads had actively intended to be caregivers. Instead, most were at home because they couldn’t find work or were ill or disabled.
Today, about half of stay-home dads still indicate that they are home due to unemployment or health issues. About 20% report they are at home because they are in school, retired, or for some other reason.
But now, about 20% of stay-at-home dads say they have chosen to stay home to care for their homes and families–a major change. The researchers note that this group of fathers tends to be less educated than their relatively high-earning wives.
Although attitudes do seem to be evolving somewhat, these findings indicate that stay-home dads are still pretty rare. As women’s educational attainment and earnings continue to rise, it will be interesting to see if more fathers make the decision to remain at home for some of their working lives while mom picks up the paychecks.
Further Reading
Stay-at-Home Dads at About.Com
References:
Kramer, K. Z., Kelly, E. L., & McCulloch, J. B. (2013). Stay-at-home fathers: Definition and characteristics based on 34 years of CPS data. Journal of Family Issues. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0192513X13502479
(Originally published in a slightly different form as: Church, C. (2013). Stay-at- home dads over the last 30 years [Radio broadcast episode]. Family Album Radio. Gainesville, FL: University of Florida.)
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