State of the World’s Fathers, a landmark analysis of fatherhood and caregiving, draws upon research and statistics from hundreds of studies covering all countries in the world with available data. An advocacy tool for the MenCare campaign, the report provides recommendations for policy and programmatic action. It targets governments, employers, and individuals around the world to promote involved fatherhood and caregiving.
Since the first report in 2015, the State of the World’s Fathers (SOWF) report provides a periodic, data-driven snapshot of the state of men’s contributions to parenting and caregiving globally by addressing four issues related to fatherhood: unpaid care work in the home; sexual and reproductive health and rights, and maternal, newborn, and child health; men’s caregiving and violence against children and women; and child development.
Using global data on men’s involvement in caregiving and maternal and child health, and on the connections between fatherhood and violence, the report provides the basis for concentrated social, political, and healthcare initiatives; broad institutional change; and public awareness to bring about a transformation toward equitable, involved fatherhood. It defines a global agenda for involving men and boys as part of the solution to achieve gender equality and positive outcomes in the lives of women, children, and men themselves.
Our latest report reveals that thousands of women and men across the world are calling for care to be central to their lives, which can only be addressed by a fundamental overhaul of power structures, policies, and social norms around both paid and unpaid care work.
New research conducted for the report across 17 countries shows that women and men across the world have multiple caregiving responsibilities, to children, the elderly, homes, neighbors, friends, and extended families. Men say they are doing, and want to do, more but barriers to equal sharing – structural, norm-based, individual and financial – remain. Despite many taking on more caring responsibilities during the pandemic and more countries and companies putting in national care plans, including paid parental leave, the data reveals too few workplaces support men’s care, too few policies and politicians even consider men’s caregiving, and too few boys grow up seeing it exhibited by their own fathers. There is now an urgent need to break the binary and for men and boys to join the ‘unfinished revolution’ and center care as much as women and girls to achieve care equality.
This report offers a conservative estimate of the value of [care] work at some 11 trillion US dollars per year. It may well be much more.
The State of the World’s Fathers 2021 report – the fourth in the series – presents research on care work during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on structural barriers that prevent equitable distribution of caregiving between women and men.
Access hereThe third State of the World’s Fathers report reveals new research on men’s caregiving from 11 countries, with additional cross-country analysis of data from over 30 countries.
Access hereThis report draws from nearly 100 research studies, with data from nearly every country where it is available, to reveal what has stalled progress toward global gender equality and to lay out a bold agenda for men's caregiving.
Access here
