Holy cow. Last year, around this time, the Census Bureau published its annual and deeply flawed at-home dad estimate. So I have been waiting patiently for the new government demographers to release the 2004 figures. They haven't. So I did some investigating m'self and found this hard-to-parse chart. After a great deal of screwing around, I managed to make it readable. I'm glad I took the time.
It doesn't say how many at-home dads there are (in 2003 there were 98,000, by the government's poor reasoning), but it does have the next best stat: the number of children being cared for by at-home dads. And that number is staggering: 268,000. (In 2003 it was 175,000. In 2002, 189,000). So we're talking about a 53 percent jump in one year. That is amazing, and we can expect a similar jump in the overall at-home dad numbers, if the Census folks ever decide to do that math.
Let me quickly lay out two caveats. One is that the number is still a gross underestimation of our numbers, the same reasons I harp on every year. By excluding part-time workers, shift workers, seasonal worker, students, husbands of maternity-leave-taking working women, etc. etc., the overall number remains suppressed by a factor of 20. Two is that the because the number of at-home dads counted remains small, there's a larger margin of error. For all I know, the real jump was more modest. But with a 53 percent increase showing in the stats, I'm confident there was some sort of real jump.
So what's at work here? Allow me some jubilant overreaching: at-home dads could be turning a corner. Granted, we're still outnumbered (by a factor of 50) by at-home moms (up by a modest 1.6 percent in 2004), but I believe that the times, they are a changin'. The recent boom in movie and television characters who are at-home dads reflects what Hollywood writers -- and everyone else -- has noticed. There are more dads on the playground, more dads at the grocery store. It is entirely possible that we are near a tipping point, in which some of the social stigma surrounding at-home fatherhood has melted away. My local landscape has become slightly more gender-neutral even in the four years since I started the dadhood thing. Looks like I'm not alone.
More on this later, I'm sure, and I'll keep looking for the Census Bureau to release the actual at-home dad numbers.
It doesn't say how many at-home dads there are (in 2003 there were 98,000, by the government's poor reasoning), but it does have the next best stat: the number of children being cared for by at-home dads. And that number is staggering: 268,000. (In 2003 it was 175,000. In 2002, 189,000). So we're talking about a 53 percent jump in one year. That is amazing, and we can expect a similar jump in the overall at-home dad numbers, if the Census folks ever decide to do that math.
Let me quickly lay out two caveats. One is that the number is still a gross underestimation of our numbers, the same reasons I harp on every year. By excluding part-time workers, shift workers, seasonal worker, students, husbands of maternity-leave-taking working women, etc. etc., the overall number remains suppressed by a factor of 20. Two is that the because the number of at-home dads counted remains small, there's a larger margin of error. For all I know, the real jump was more modest. But with a 53 percent increase showing in the stats, I'm confident there was some sort of real jump.
So what's at work here? Allow me some jubilant overreaching: at-home dads could be turning a corner. Granted, we're still outnumbered (by a factor of 50) by at-home moms (up by a modest 1.6 percent in 2004), but I believe that the times, they are a changin'. The recent boom in movie and television characters who are at-home dads reflects what Hollywood writers -- and everyone else -- has noticed. There are more dads on the playground, more dads at the grocery store. It is entirely possible that we are near a tipping point, in which some of the social stigma surrounding at-home fatherhood has melted away. My local landscape has become slightly more gender-neutral even in the four years since I started the dadhood thing. Looks like I'm not alone.
More on this later, I'm sure, and I'll keep looking for the Census Bureau to release the actual at-home dad numbers.
Tags: SAHD blog dad census stay+at+home+dad
posted by Rebel Dad at
5:27 AM
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