College-Educated U.S. Fathers Spend 46 More Minutes on Childcare as Class Gap Quintupled
Updated
Updated · Fortune · Jun 21
College-Educated U.S. Fathers Spend 46 More Minutes on Childcare as Class Gap Quintupled
3 articles · Updated · Fortune · Jun 21
Summary
U.S. fathers with college degrees now spend 46 more minutes a day on childcare than noncollege dads, a gap that has quintupled since the 1960s even as fathers overall devote far more time to parenting.
2024 American Time Use Survey data show dads of infants reporting about 125 minutes of primary childcare and 394 minutes of secondary childcare daily, reflecting how much more care falls on parents as extended-family support shrinks.
Job quality helps drive the divide: only about half of U.S. fathers take any paid paternity leave, and roughly 44% of workers are ineligible for unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act.
Affluent parents' embrace of intensive parenting has widened the split further, as time-consuming school oversight and enrichment activities increasingly function as advantages that lower-income fathers may struggle to provide.
The broader picture is that American fathers are more involved than in past generations, but that hands-on parenting is becoming increasingly shaped by class and the erosion of communal childrearing support.