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Dads worth less than moms around house: study

Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:22pm EDT

(Reuters) - Fathers of America, you may consider yourselves indispensable, but a new survey says you're only worth about one-third as much as mom around the house.

In fact, you are not even keeping up with inflation.

Insurance news and data website Insure.com released its annual Father's Day Index on Monday, an attempt to calculate the value in wage terms of the work a father typically does around the house.

The value this year was some $20,248, about $1,000 less than the inflation-adjusted value of 10 years ago.

The website matched government wage data to 13 different fatherly household tasks to calculate the index. Among the jobs were barbecuing (matched to the U.S. Department of Labor's "cooks, all other"), killing spiders ("pest control workers") and mowing the lawn ("grounds maintenance workers").

By comparison, the website calculated a typical mother's household work at $60,182 -- nearly three times greater.

The disparity is notable given research showing women still make less than men for the doing the same hours at the same jobs -- 77 cents on the dollar, on average.

(Reporting by Ben Berkowitz; Editing by Maureen Bavdek)
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Comments (5)
bobber1956 wrote:
For some reason were unable to put my 20k and my wifes 60k from our home income in the bank. Perhaps that is because that money is NOT REAL. What we were able to put in the bank last year was my 65k and the wifes 15k from work. We do pay our bills with REAL money you know.

Jun 11, 2012 11:18am EDT  --  Report as abuse
bobber1956 wrote:
Oh yeah I forgot. It was my 65k of REAL money that paid for the house I am worth less in.

Jun 11, 2012 11:32am EDT  --  Report as abuse
mbgodofwar wrote:
What’s defined as a fatherly or motherly work? OBVIOUSLY breast-feeding is a mommy-only thing, but to point out a ‘glass ceiling’ then defining each piece of work as ‘man’s duty’ or ‘woman’s duty’ sounds hypocritical and discriminatory. Are there men that let their wife slave away and do everything? Yes. Are there women that are queens and order their husband around like serfs? Yes. Are their households where husband and wife share responsibilities “50-50?” Yes. Devaluing fathers more is a GREAT way to promote male worthlessness and destabilize families!

Jun 11, 2012 2:04pm EDT  --  Report as abuse
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