• 11
  • July
    2011

In Denver, as in elsewhere around the country, it is not uncommon for a recent mother to stay home and take care of her children. In a minority of cases, however, fathers take on this task. Now, a new study is suggesting that our society retains at least a vestige of traditional gender roles and, as such, men who adopt a traditionally feminine role, such as child-rearing, are more likely to divorce.

According to the study authors, it seems that our society has become very accepting of women, whether they choose to work outside the home or not. The same flexibility is not granted to men, however, because we seem to see it as unacceptable for a man not to work. The study ranks a man's unemployment ahead of unhappiness in the relationship as a leading indicator of divorce. Men seem to feel pressure both from themselves and from others to work outside the home. Thus, if a man is staying home with the children and is not the family's breadwinner, it seems he is more likely to ask for a divorce.

The difficulties faced by stay-at-home dads were chronicled in a Tom Perrotta's novel "Little Children," which was recently adapted into a critically acclaimed movie of the same title starring Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson.

The survey collected data from 3,600 couples who participated in the National Survey of Families and Households, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health. The study was published in a recent issue of the American Journal of Sociology.

Do you have any thoughts as to why this might be the case? Do you think men should be a family's primary earner, or does it not matter who is bringing home the bacon?

Source: Time, "Stay-at-Home Dads Are More Likely to Divorce," Bonnie Rochman, 11 July 2011.