Father Count

Total fathers with their own children under 18 (based on U.S. Census data & projections)

Total dads	64,300,000
Married dads with children under 18	26,500,000
Single fathers	2,500,000
Stay-at-home dads	159,000

A Fatherhood Awakening

NCF Gallup Poll data (see sheet on Gallup data) shows the recognition of the problem of father absence is growing. In addition, these statistics from an advertising agency';s annual "Lifestyle Survey" show that the younger generation are more committed to fathering than the older generation.

There are other signs besides the Lifestyle Survey that men are rediscovering fatherhood. For instance, estimates peg the number of dads who are present at their children';s births as rising from 27% in 1974 to over 90% today.

The growth of flextime is benefiting fathers. Almost half of fathers working at two federal agencies chose the option to come to work earlier so they could leave earlier to spend more time with their families.

Daddy Track

A 1987 Fortune magazine poll found 30% of fathers said they had personally turned down a job promotion or transfer because it would have reduced the time they spend with their families.

If given the choice, 38% of working dads say they would take a pay cut to spend more time with their kids. (2007 survey by CareerBuilder.com)

"Second Time Around"

One dramatic indication of the rediscovery of fatherhood is the number of "second-time-around" dads—fathers who';ve raised children and then have what amounts to almost another generation of kids:

99,000 dads have children age 18-24 living at home and have no other children except one or more 5 and under in age. (1,000 of these are custodial single dads; the remainder are married.) (1993 Census Bureau data)

Challenges: Complex Families

Balancing Work and Family

Fathers who are growing more committed to their families face ever-increasing demands in the workplace.

• Forty-eight percent of working fathers have missed a significant event in their child's life due to work at least once in the last year and nearly one in five (18 percent) have missed four or more.
• More than one in four (27 percent) working dads say they spend more than 50 hours a week on work and nearly one in 10 (8 percent) spend more than 60 hours.
• One in four (25 percent) working dads spend less than one hour with their kids each day. Forty-two percent spend less than two hours each day.
• Thirty-six percent of working dads say their company does not offer flexible work arrangements such as flexible schedules, telecommuting, job sharing and more.

(2007 survey by CareerBuilder.com)

More families are relying on dad for child care while mom works:

Primary care for children under 5 whose mother works was supplied 20% of the time by dads, and for households where children were 5 to 14, 6.6% of the time.

Total dads involved in primary child care while mom works: 3,385,000.

Pre-schoolers in "father care":

June 1977	14%
Fall 1986	15%
Fall 1990	17%
Fall 1991	20%

Note: while 13,880,000 couples with children under 18 both work for pay, only 5,014,000 both work full-time day-shift jobs.

(Census Bureau report, Child Care Arrangement, Fall 1991, "Who's Minding the Kids?")

There are other challenges which make the fathering picture complex. One in twelve men will be a dad while serving in the military, with the demands that lifestyle can bring. Other complex fathering situations are increasing in number:

Single Primary Care-taker Dads:

1970	393,000
1980	690,000
1990	1,351,000
1994	1,156,000
2007	2,200,000

• Among single parents living with their children, close to one in six is a father, compared with one in 10 in 1970.
• In 2.2 million households, fathers raise their children without a mother. That's about one household in 45.
• The number of single-father households rose 62 percent in the past 10 years.
• The portion of households headed by fathers with children living there doubled in a decade, to 2 percent.

(Census Bureau data)

Live-in Dads

1970	196,000
1980	431,000
1990	891,000
1994	1,270,000

(Statistical Abstract, p. 56, Census Bureau data on unmarried couples living with children under 15 years old)

Rising Expectations for Fathers

The National Center for Fathering's Gallup Poll in 1992 found 96.8% of those responding agreed that fathers should be more involved their children's education. 54.1% agreed that "fathers today spend less time with their children than their fathers did with them."

Whatever else those numbers mean, they certainly indicate rising expectations and point out the need for improvement.

Bringing home the paycheck is no longer seen as sufficient to fulfill the fathering role. Dads are expected to be more involved and nurturing, both physically and verbally. Some of these expectations are a result of more moms working outside the home, and some come from parents who long to give their children what they missed while growing up. But some of the rising expectations come from within men themselves: they know they can contribute more to their children than what may have seemed "normal" for fathers when they were young. When they do invest in their children, they find great rewards.

Employees link family satisfaction with productivity at work, and many companies are starting to recognize this. At DuPont Corp, a 1995 study concluded "The most striking finding ... is the positive impact that DuPont';s work-life programs have had on business results." In their study of 18,000 employees, the company found that the top three reasons employees rejected changes in their duties or promotions were family related. They had refused: relocation, 34%; increased travel, 24%; and overtime or a job with more pressure, 21%.

Various Forms of Father Absence

Fatherlessness is most associated with out-of-wedlock birth and divorce. Those are the two driving forces which have led to the physical absence of dads. 27,341,000 children live apart from their biological fathers. This amounts to 39% of children under 18 in the nation.

(1994 Census Bureau data released in 1996)

While joint custody and other arrangements are increasing fathers'; involvement after divorce, the effects are still devastating on children. The National Commission on Children';s national survey of children and parents (1991) found close to half of children in disrupted families hadn';t seen their fathers at all in the past year. Nearly one in five children in female-headed families hadn';t seen their fathers in five years. Frank Furstenberg (Divided Families, 1991) said more than one-half of all children who don';t live with their father have never been in their father';s home.

Another cause of physical absence is incarceration:

Dads in Prison: As of June 1994 there were an estimated 778,761 dads behind bars with children under 18, and an additional 105,500 dads whose only children were over 18.

(Bureau of Justice Statistics)

Dads who are physically with their families may nonetheless be emotionally and socially absent:

In two-parent households, fewer than 25% of young boys and girls experience an average of at least one hour a day of relatively individualized contact with their fathers. The average daily amount of one-to-one father/child contact reported in this country is less than 30 minutes.

(Henry B. Biller, "The Father Factor and the Two Parent Advantage: Reducing the Paternal Deficit," unpublished paper, 1994)

Almost 20% of 6th - 12th graders have not had a good conversation lasting for at least 10 minutes with at least one of their parents in more than a month.

(Peter L. Benson, The Troubled Journey: A Portrait of 6th-12th Grade Youth. Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute, 1993, p. 84)

More—and Younger—Grandfathers