At‐Home Father Families in the United States: Gender Ideology, Human Capital, and Unemployment
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/jomf.12327 |
| Author | Karen Z. Kramer,Amit Kramer |
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
K Z. K University of Illinois
A K University of Illinois∗
At-Home Father Families in the United States:
Gender Ideology, Human Capital, and
Unemployment
The rising population of stay-at-home fathers
is driven by economic conditions, human cap-
ital, and changing gender ideology. When
unemployment rates increase, women become
breadwinners in these families. The growing
gender education gap is a crucial factor in
spousal work and caregiving arrangements.
The authors test these propositions by track-
ing individuals using data from the National
Longitudinal Surveys of Youth and the Current
Population Survey. They nd that unemployment
rates are associated with having both caregiving
and unable-to-work stay-at-home father fam-
ilies and that the probability that households
choose stay-at-home father arrangements is
greater when mothers have more education than
fathers. Finally,individual differences in gender
ideology have strong effects on the probability
that families choose a caregiving stay-at-home
father family structure.
Stay-at-home father families in which the
mother is the primary or sole earner of income
Department of Human Development and Family Studies,
905 S. Goodwin Avenue, 239 Bevier Hall, Urbana, IL
61801 (kramr@illinois.edu).
∗School of Labor and Employment Relations, 504 E.
Armory Avenue, 247E LER, Champaign, IL 61820.
Key Words: caregiving fathers,family and work, family eco-
nomics, gender ideology, human capital, unemployment.
represent a small but growing percentage
of two-parent families in the United States,
growing from 2% in the 1970s to 4% in 2010
(Chesley, 2011; Fields, 2002; Kramer, Kelly, &
McCulloch, 2015; Lee, 2015). Higher partic-
ipation rates of women in the labor force, the
impact of the 2009 Great Recession, which had
a more devastating effect on men’s employment
than women’s (Harrington, Van Deusen, &
Ladge, 2010), combined with greater projected
growth rates in occupations dominated by
women, such as health and education (Boushey,
2009), suggest that the number of stay-at-home
father families in the United States will con-
tinue to grow. Studying the rising proportion
of stay-at-home father families is important not
only as a demographic shift but also as a socio-
economic phenomenon that may precipitate
more egalitarian divisions of paid and unpaid
labor within families.
In this article, we examine the inuence of
three factors on the propensity of married cou-
ples to adopt stay-at-home father work and care
arrangement: unemployment, relative education
of spouses, and gender ideology. In doing so
we show that forces at the individual level
(gender ideology), family level (relative human
capital between spouses), and macroeconomic
level (unemployment rates) that operate simul-
taneously can explain the growing number of
stay-at-home father families over time (Kramer
et al., 2015).
Journal of Marriage and Family 78 (October 2016): 1315–1331 1315
DOI:10.1111/jomf.12327
1316 Journal of Marriage and Family
Educational attainment has been identied as
a major reason for the increasing role of women
in the workforce. The past few decades have
witnessed tremendous changes in women’s par-
ticipation in the labor force, which has altered
family life and the perceptions of women’s
roles in both domestic and public spheres. In
the United States, women now make up 50%
of the workforce and earn 62% of associate
degrees, 57.4% of bachelor degrees, and 62.6%
of master’s degrees awarded each year (Mason,
2009; U.S. Department of Education, 2012).
Still, although women have increased their
educational standing and even surpassed men’s
educational achievements, there is still a large
gender-earning gap; this is partly a result of
income discrepancy rooted in elds of study
that lead women along certain career paths
(i.e., health, education), but also discrimination
(Bobbitt-Zeher, 2007; Lips, 2013).
Changes in labor-force participation and
the proportion of women with advanced
degrees translate into an increasing num-
ber of dual-earner and dual-career families.
About 60% of the labor force is composed of
individuals belonging to dual-earner families
(Goldberg et al., 2012). In addition, the growing
educational gap between women and men,
even if not perfectly correlated with earnings
(Bobbitt-Zeher, 2007; Lips, 2013), has resulted
in a larger proportion of women earning more
money than their husbands and identifying
themselves as the spouse with a career as
opposed to a job (Buchmann & DiPrete, 2006;
Drago, Black, & Wooden, 2005). Although
most of these families do not actively seek
stay-at-home father work and care arrange-
ments, the sheer number of women in the labor
force and the growing gender education gap in
favor of women have had a profound inuence
on their growth (Kramer et al., 2015), although
no studies have hitherto examined this rela-
tionship using a representative sample of U.S.
families.
The reasoning offered earlier in this article
is supported by human capital and exchange
theories (Becker, 1994; Emerson, 1976), which
we use to explain why some families choose
a stay-at-home father work and care division
of labor. We also emphasize that growing
egalitarianism in families is another reason for
the increase in the proportion of stay-at-home
father families. Specically, changing social
norms and gender ideology have made it
socially acceptable for some families to choose
a stay-at-home father work and care arrange-
ment. We therefore argue that caregiving
stay-at-home father families (who stay at home
to take care of family and the household) are dif-
ferent from unable-to-work stay-at-home father
families who are forced into such work and care
arrangements (e.g., cannot nd a job or are ill
or disabled). Fathers in the caregiving category
are representing a signicant transformation in
societal attitudes. Although social perceptions
of career mothers and stay-at-home fathers are
still generally negative (Berdahl & Moon, 2013;
Brescoll & Uhlmann, 2005; Bridges, Etaugh,
& Barnes-Farrell, 2002; Gaunt, 2013; Kervyn,
Bergsieker, & Fiske, 2012), there has been a
change in gender ideology from the 1970s until
the mid-1990s toward a more egalitarian divi-
sion of paid and unpaid work in families (Cotter,
Hermsen, & Vanneman,2011; Kornrich, Brines,
& Leupp, 2013). Although men’s full-time labor
force participation is still greater than that of
women, who are more likely to stay at home
with preschool-aged children, the growth in the
proportion of stay-at-home fathers is facilitated,
at least partially, by changing social norms
regarding the division of paid and unpaid work
in families (Chesley, 2011).
Past research provides valuable informa-
tion on the negative social perceptions of
stay-at-home fathers (Chesley, 2011), which
made up 2% of households in the 1970s, grow-
ing to almost 4% by 2010 (Kramer et al., 2015;
Lee, 2015). Yet, no study of which we are aware
has taken a holistic approach to addressing how
changes in gender ideology, human capital,
and unemployment explain the growing pro-
portion of families in which the mother is the
sole breadwinner and the father is the sole or
primary child-care provider. We contend that it
is important to study the different paths fami-
lies take when adopting a stay-at-home father
work and care arrangement; doing so provides
insight into the personal impetus and moti-
vations as well as the larger—and sometimes
unforeseeable—external forces that precipitate
the transfer of paid work and caregiving roles
within the intimate setting of the family.
Furthermore, the diverse reasons leading
families to adopt stay-at-home father work and
care arrangements make it important to address
this phenomenon using both social change and
macroeconomic perspectives. This allows us to
address the interplay and reciprocity of various
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