While doing research for Sugar Milk's marketing plan, I came across a host of statistics backing up the relevance of the book's subject matter. Some of this information didn't surprise me; however, there was an equal portion of it that did, particularly the study done by the University of Michigan on the relationship of unemployment and depression in men.
- Of those currently unemployed, 86% are men (1)
- SAHD dads comprised 2.7% of stay-at-home parents (Washington Post, June 17, 2006)
- The number of SAHD's has tripled in the last ten years (Today / MSNBC, August 30 2007)
- The U.S. Census conducts an annual study of family arrangements, and that is how it determined there were about 140,000 stay-at-home fathers in 2008. Others estimate there are many more, perhaps about 2 million (2)
- Of the nation's 11.3 million preschoolers whose mothers are employed, 25% are regularly cared for by their father during their mother's working hours. This amounted to 2.9 million children
Mothers
- Woman with an MBA earn more than 60% than their spouse (Pink Magazine, May/June 2008)
- As of November 2008, women held 49.1% of the nation's jobs (New York Times, February 6, 2009)
- One hundred American women earn a college degree for every 73 men, while that same number of women earn master's degrees for every 62 men (New York Times, February 6, 2009)
- 26% of wives earned more than their husbands in 2006, an eight-digit increase from two decades ago
- According to the U.S. Department of Labor, 72% of mothers with children under 18 are in the workforce
- Each day, more than 25 millions mothers work, in addition to performing their duties as a mother, wife or homemaker
Unemployed fathers/Depression
- In June 2009, the male unemployment rate was 10%, vs. 7.6% for women; in July these numbers increased to 10.5% and 8.1% respectively
- In the first five months of this year, 5.4 percent of working wives had an unemployed husband, compared with an average 2.4% over the first five months of 2007 (Reuters, July 2009)
- Some 1 million U.S. families have a working wife, a child under 18 and an unemployed husband (Reuters, July 2009)
- National Institute of Mental Health reported in January 2009 that nearly 6 million men suffered from depression
- Psychology Today reported that male depression goes misdiagnosed 70% of the time
- 2002 study by the University of Michigan and published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology found that 71% of men still suffered from depression two years after being unemployed regardless of whether they found work again
Divorced fathers
- The number of single fathers has jumped to 2.3 Million from 393,000 in 1970
- Currently, among single parents living with their children, 18% are men. Among these fathers, 10% are raising three or more of their own children under 18 years old; 42% are divorced; 38% have never married; 15% are separated; and 5% are widowed
- 21% of divorced men have an annual family income of $50,000 or more; while the average total child support payment is $3,600 annually
- 4.6 Million fathers provide child support. All in all, 84% of child-support providers are men
Notes: 1) Data supplied by the United States Census Bureau and The Department of Labor and Statistics unless otherwise indicated. 2) The estimated 2 million SAHD’s was reported by CBS News in a 2008 article entitled, "Women Bringing Home The Bacon." Data from Census Bureau indicates 21.4 million at-home fathers worked at least one week of the 52 week period, which added to the 140,000 totals around the numbers in the CBS article.
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