According to a new report, men worldwide are eager to increase their caregiving responsibilities at home but said that societal barriers are stopping them from doing so.
The majority of men surveyed (between 70% and 90%) felt equally responsible for caring responsibilities, such as childcare, to their partner.
However, unequal pay and government policies mean that women still perform around seven times more care work than men in certain countries, the report finds.
These findings were published in the State of the World’s Fathers report, which interviewed up to 12,000 men, women and gender-diverse people from 17 different countries.
The exception to the rule was India, where only 25% of men agreed they were equally responsible for caregiving responsibilities as their other half.
Taveeshi Gupta, the director of research, evaluation and learning at the US-based NGO Equimundo, commented: “Our findings show what we already suspected: men like to care, men want to care.
“There is a high degree of desire to be involved in a variety of care tasks, for example childcare. While women are doing more hours of care in all 17 countries we surveyed – men are now self-reporting more hours of care than before.”
Countries involved in the study included: Australia, China, Colombia, Ireland, Rwanda, South Africa, and the US.
Globally, women dedicate 55% of their non-leisure time to unpaid work, while men only contribute 19% of their non-leisure time to such tasks, the findings also revealed.
“On average, men’s salaries around the world are a fifth higher than women’s,” added Gary Barker, the CEO of Equimundo.
“Many households will make the decision that the man’s paid work brings more into the household.”
One solution recommended by the report is to increase men’s paternity leave.
“We need days offered to men to equal those offered to women,” Barke said.
“But we also need the mechanisms to promote it, to show men that they won’t face repercussions for claiming it because all their bosses and managers are also going on leave.”
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