Because of the traditional view that women’s primary domain is the family and men’s primary domain is the workplace, we have relatively few studies of men’s roles in the home. For example, enormous amounts of literature have been dedicated to discussing the “unmarried mother,” but it is only relatively recently that research has begun to look at the fathers of children born outside of marriage. A growing field of men’s studies looks at the role of being a “man” in modern society, including the changing domestic demands on men as more women enter the workforce.
Studies do show that men with working wives have begun to share more responsibility for home life. When men become fathers, they begin to carry out many tasks that are stereotypically female, such as feeding and dressing the baby. Even so, fathers have been found to spend less time in direct interaction with infants than do mothers (Laflamme et al., 2003). Women still tend to retain primary responsibility for organizing the daily household and for physical chores like preparing meals and doing laundry. Men tend to take on other types of chores, such as heavy-lifting chores and specific projects in the home. Although working women spend more hours on household chores than men do, this too has been slowly changing. Today, research suggests that many men are taking more responsibility for childcare and are assuming more domestic chores (Auster & Ohm, 2000).
Because of the changing workforce, the numbers of unemployed men whose wives are the primary wage earners are increasing (Fitch, 2003). These stay-at-home dads assume domestic chores and become the primary caretakers for the children. It is interesting, however, that we consider men who choose to keep house “unemployed,” whereas women who do the same tasks are usually considered outside the wage-earning workforce. There is still an assumption that a man “should” be working, whereas women have the choice to stay home.