State of the World’s Fathers

As part of the campaign MenCare led by Promundo and Sonke Gender Justice, Promundo recently released a publication looking at “The State of the World’s Father”. In many parts of the world a boy child is still treated differently from a girl child. Often, they do not receive the same chances and opportunities. The aim of the report is to emphasize the value of equality of women in men in the workplace and at home, especially regarding unpaid care work. During the past 15 years the unpaid care gap decreased only very little and less than half of the countries in the world offer paid paternity leave after pregnancy, which is only rarely taken by men. In spite of fathers being more involved into care work today, unpaid care work is still perceived as a women’s task, leading also to financial disparities. However, research has shown that shared care giving is also be in the interest of men by improving their physical, mental, and sexual health and reducing their risk-taking. Therefore, in order to achieve a fair sharing of care work and gender equality, men would have to increase their care work by a minimum of 50 min per day. However, individual engagement will not be enough to tackle the great inequalities, but changes in policies, social and gender norms and economic and physical security are euqally essential.