Gen Z Doesn't Agree With Stay at Home Dads

A significant proportion of young adults believe children are worse off having a stay-at-home father rather than a stay-at-home mother, according to exclusive research commissioned by Newsweek.

In a poll conducted by Redfield & Wilton Strategies for Newsweek, 1,500 U.S. adults were asked: "Do you think having a stay-at-home father is better, worse, or just as good for a child as having a stay-at-home mother?"

Just over one in five (21 percent) of the Generation Z respondents aged between 18 and 26 surveyed as part of the poll said they thought it was "worse."

That represented a higher proportion than in any other age demographic in the poll. Fourteen percent of millennials aged 27 to 42 thought it would be worse while 10 percent of Generation X (ages 43 to 58) and 12 percent of those aged 59 and over were of the same opinion.

Further proof of Gen Z's less than enthusiastic stance can be gleaned from the fact just 46 percent of respondents said having a stay-at-home dad would be "just as good" as having a stay-at-home mom.

This percent was lower than any other age demographic polled. By contrast 54 percent of millennials, and 65 percent of those 59 and over believe it would be "just as good."

"Simply Cultural Norms"

Reflecting on the survey's findings and the apparent aversion to stay-at-home dads, Ruth E. Freeman, a licensed clinical social worker and president of Peace At Home Parenting Solutions, told Newsweek: "Fathers can be as nurturing and responsive as mothers, however experience influences how our brains function. What this means is that if fathers spend a lot of time caring for their child, they can be as nurturing as mothers who do the same."

Despite this Freeman acknowledged that in recent years the disparity between the roles of mothers and fathers in the family unit had been laid bare. "The pandemic revealed that mothers still spend far more time handling domestic duties and for most families those domestic duties include a wide range of nurturing responsibilities from knowing which kind of fruit a child likes in their lunch to scheduling medical check-ups to handling school difficulties and beyond."

Freeman reckons the perceptions of those surveyed by Newsweek were likely "based on their experiences of spending more time with moms and their moms spending more time than dads nurturing the children." She said: "These are simply cultural norms, but as fathers get more involved in raising kids, hopefully future generations will perceive dads as equally capable of doing the job."

Stay-At-Home Dads on Rise

The findings of the Newsweek poll come after figures published by the Pew Research Center last year highlighted a shift in the number of stay-at-home moms and dads.

According to findings published by the nonpartisan think tank back in August 2023, between 1989 and 2021, there was a slight decrease in the number of stay-at-home moms across America with the proportion dropping from 28 percent to 26 percent.

At the same time, the number of stay-at-home dads has risen slightly, with the Pew Research Center estimating that the share of fathers who were not in paid work had gone up from four percent to seven percent over this period.

While that might not sound like much of a shift, the diverging figures mean that fathers now represent around 18 percent of stay-at-home parents, or roughly one in five. By contrast, back in 1989, that proportion stood at around 11 percent or one in ten.

Financial factors may well have played a role in the shift. According to the Pew Research Center data, families of stay-at-home dads tended to be less well off than those where fathers worked for pay. In fact, the data shows 40 percent of stay-at-home dads live in poverty compared with just five percent of dads who work for pay.