Number of stay-at-home dads on the rise: Stats Can
Posted June 25, 2015 7:20 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The number of stay-at-home dads is growing in Canada and more men are finding creative ways to work and take care of their kids at the same time. We’re looking at how working arrangements and attitudes have changed for the modern father.
Statistics Canada has released numbers showing dad is the one staying at home to care for the kids in more than one-in-10 families now.
Katherine Lewis writes for Working Mother, which recently did a survey finding 39 per cent of fathers would prefer to stay at home if they could. It also found 77 per cent of working dads use flex time to take care of their kids.
“Men are really claiming their role as dads by either pushing back on employers or just happily using the programs that some of the more forward-thinking employers offer to all of their employees.”
Those programs include telecommuting, flex days, compressed work weeks or shifted hours so they can pick up kids from school, take them to games or appointments or simply be more present.
She adds the numbers from their survey show how different things are compared to just a decade ago.
“They were viewed with puzzlement in the office when they said they were going to pick up a kid at daycare or take a kid to the pediatrician and now 77 per cent of men have some form of workplace flexibility and more and more they’re really open about that.”
Lewis adds more dads are also being more open about being at home, rather than saying they’re consulting or between jobs.
