Of the 1.9 million lone parent households in the UK, 8-11% are lone father households. Despite this, research on lone fathers is scarce and what is available is mostly collected as part of lone mothers' studies. Gender stereotypes place mother in charge of the domestic sphere while the father is the breadwinner, providing for the family, yet recently there has been a significant amount of research into the importance of the role of a father. Experts have demonstrated the benefits of fathers' involvement in childcare linking it to developing empathy and confidence. Evidence such as this has contributed to the Government's, 'Guide for New Dads,' which is now included in the pack pregnant women receive on her first hospital visit. However, despite new emphasis on fatherhood, single dads remain a poorly represented group in official statistics, government programmes and communities.
Writing in the Times in January 2010, single father Jim Bishop speaks of the difficulties faced by every parent – that of balancing work and home life. However, he believes that ‘workplace understanding is more readily extended to mothers because working fathers who are also full-time childcarers are still relatively rare and little understood.' In the same section Tim Rushby-Smith, a married father of one, talks of ‘entering a “female” world' where most of the literature for dads ‘tended to be in gimmicky format with information presented in the style of a car manual or military survival guide.' Single fathers are almost invisible as a group.
Based on Census 2001 data, 61.76% of single fathers were in full or part time employment compared to only 47.2% of single mothers. Looking at full time employment alone the figures show an even starker contrast: 54.95% of lone fathers were in full time employment, but only 21.1% of lone mothers were. However, government policies as well as other influences have increased the employment rate of lone mothers during the last decade: based on 2007, the full time employment rate of lone mothers stands at 47%, more than double the rate of 2001. Unfortunately lone fathers' employment rates are not analysed so we do not know if single fathers' rates have risen as well or if lone mothers are about to catch up with them. Little is known about single fathers' childcare arrangement and employers' attitudes towards them.
Lone parenting presents a range of difficulties, however being a lone father poses a unique conflict.
The traditional view is of men taking responsibility for work outside the home and women taking responsibility for the domestic sphere. The emphasis of research and social care on women means it is not hard to get the impression that much of what is said about the family continues to assume that men's role is actually outside or peripheral to the family. This is, for example, demonstrated by the ‘Listening to lone parents about childcare' report from the Daycare Trust which failed to feature a single comment from a lone father.
It has been argued that the status of single parent overrides sex category for the expectations of and demands made on single fathers, but gender expectations still influence behaviour. Even though single mothers and fathers are in identical structural positions, their behaviours will differ precisely because the structural position is incongruent with gender norms. As a result of this, more than single mothers, single fathers are expected to be sole providers. Regardless of caregiver status, father equals breadwinner and breadwinning constrains caregiving. These societal expectations have meant that some single fathers perceived a lack of approval and strong negative attitudes towards them, even among teachers and family professionals.
Most of the research on single fathers hails from the United States. Between 1970 and 2004 the number of US households headed by single fathers has risen dramatically from 400,000 to 2.3m. This means fathers now head one out of five of the country's 13m single-parent families. The financial challenges that face single parents are different according to gender. For women the biggest issue becomes figuring out how to make ends meet as the typical woman's standard of living drops about 30% after a divorce - while for men solo parenthood ‘more often wreaks havoc on their careers,' where they are
not offered enough flexibility in the workplace. Lone fathers face not only exclusion from the labour market but also the loss of an important source of identity and fulfilment through work.
A problem single fathers - as well as any father - encounter is that childcare and family-friendly measures in the workplace, ‘are typically seen as women's issues,' and that as a result they are mostly taken up by women, hence reinforcing the gender division. However, these measures are just as relevant to single fathers. Studies in the United States have found that everyday single fathers spend only 12 minutes less a day with their children than single mothers, and 14 minutes more than married fathers. In spite of the higher employment rate, the difference in time spent with the child is minimal, hence demonstrating the equal importance of childcare programs to support single fathers.
William McGranaghan, the founder of
Dads House – a new charity that plans to offer temporary accommodation for fathers and children – found that he was left to care for his son without help. His project Homes for Fathers and Families (HOFF) is a project “aimed at providing the same degree of support for single fathers as is available for single mothers in the UK.” It points out that fathers who look after their children on their own have much the same difficulties as mothers. In addition they are not seen as needing help, for example by employers in regard to time off or flexibility in working hours. As a result their children suffer.
Policies aimed at lone parents should pay equal attention to single mothers and fathers. A starting point would be an improved data - and knowledge base on single fathers, their employment situation and employers' attitudes towards them, their use of childcare arrangements and their housing situation.
P.S.: I should say this as our Single Fathers research project will provide such a starting point and more.
P.P.S: But if you now think lone fathers in the UK are (almost) invisible as a group google “single fathers in Africa” and compare the number of hits with those for “single mothers in Africa” – and that's a whole continent!