Just in time for Father’s Day, Salary.com has released an intriguing survey of 1,074 stay-at-home and working dads.
This year’s survey found stay-at-home dads work an average of 52.9 hours a week. Factoring in base pay plus overtime, these dads would earn $60,128 a year. Working fathers would be paid $33,858 a year after spending 30.6 hours a week on parenting duties. And that’s on top of working an average of 44 hours a week at their day jobs.
The survey was in part motivated by the 154,000 American men who became stay-at-home dads last year. Evilee Ebb, General Manager of Salary.com, said:
“It’s clear dads have become much more hands-on when it comes to parenting. From cooking meals to driving the kids to soccer practice, dads have been consistently taking on increased roles at home. Here at Salary.com, we see fathers as versatile workers who perform a myriad of day-to-day jobs that would make them attractive and valuable to any employer.”
Nevertheless, a similar survey of mom’s last month came up with stay-at-home moms spending 97 hours per week caring for their kids and racking up an imputed income of $115,432. Of course, the hours are self-reported, so many dad’s see the discrepancy between stay-at-home moms and dads as indicating a difference in how each gender views the other’s role in raising the children. James Rohl, a stay-at-home father of two and popular dad blogger in Oregon, said there is a likely explanation for the discrepancy.
“I believe, on average, stay-at-home dads see working moms as a valued partner and so dads only count the hours they are alone with their kids. But on average, stay-at-home moms count all the time they’re with the kids no matter who’s there. Even if their husbands are home, the idea is moms are still working and on the job. I don’t think that accurately reflects what’s really happening.”
The survey did not look at single parent homes where, unfortunately, there are still far more women raising children without fathers. But in two parent households dads apparently are worth sixty grand as full-time childcare providers and moms are worth almost double based on these surveys.
That seems truly odd in that stay-at-home parents are doing exactly the same work. I realize there are all kinds of places in our society where discrimination and objectification of women is alive and well. But how about we start giving dads the love they deserve?
Photo Credit Erik Bishoff
16th At-Home Dada Convention coming to Washington, DC. Saturday, October 8th, 2011 http://www.athomedadconvention.com
Many dads arrive as early as Thursday.
Registration is open. Hope to see you there!
For more information contact Daddyshome, Inc. Media Relations at http://www.daddyshome.org
Sincerely,
Hogan Hilling, Daddyshome Board Member At-Large, 20-Year At-Home Dad
I’ve got to admit it. I’d be depressed out of my mind if I tried this, especially with kids. I loved helping raise my daughter. But I’m really not interested in the domestic side of things all that much.
Interesting article, yes i too need to see precisely what sahm and sahd are selfreporting before i could draw any conclusions.
Anyway, the stigma concerning a man being a sahd has only reduced slightly. Het women should work on being more accepting. Unlike with sahm’s there seems to be little demand for male partners who want to be sahd’s
If you bang this drum “I realize there are all kinds of places in our society where discrimination and objectification of women is alive and well.” How are we going to arrive at a situation where women don’t routinely promote hate speech and misandry? And the hatred of fathers, is being broadcast from so many angles in the culture, its pretty difficult to stop it.
Anyway, thanks for speaking up Tom.