- Commercial Maintenance Service
- 03.06.2016
Stay At Home Dads
The “Leave It To Beaver” stereotype of a pearl-wearing, vacuuming wife and a bread-winning husband days are coming to an end!
Stay at home Dads are on the rise. Recent Australian studies reveal that the number of Australian stay-at-home dads has almost doubled over the past decade, from 58,800 to 107,600 and it is predicted that numbers will only rise with the shift from maternity leave to parental leave.
Aussie dads are a diverse bunch, from workaholics to stay at home Dads. Twenty percent of Australia’s population is made up of dads. There are approximately 4.7 million dads in Australia, with an estimated 2.2 million dads currently with children aged under eighteen and the average age of a new father is now thirty-three years of age.
There are about 1.8 million fathers living with their children, aged fifteen years and under. Almost all ninety-seven percent of these fathers were in couple families, with the remaining three percent
(or 58,000) being single fathers.
Traditionally men are the main income provider or breadwinner in the family and women are traditionally primarily responsible for the domestic and caring roles. With the increase in women’s participation in the labour force, many mothers have less time available to undertake domestic chores. At the same time there has been an increasing recognition that the father’s role and his relationship with a child is important.
A mother’s absence in the home leaves a gaping impact on her children’s development, right?
No! Children are very good at adjusting and having dad at home instead of mum will become just normal.
Stay at home Dads often perform duties which involves school lunches, homework, all pick-ups and drop-offs and after-school activities, housework, cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, laundry, house and car maintenance.
Figures show that in Australia there are approximately 144,000 stay at home dads with dependent children. This means that of the 4.4 million dependent children in couple families where one parent is employed full time, three percent have a mother who is employed outside of the household, while the father is either not employed or works from home.