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So much for sex equality, ZERO per cent of Brits think mums should work more than dads

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Is the idea that men should have the same choices as women when it comes to balancing career and family the last remaining taboo in the gender revolution?  Glen Poole examines the evidence. 

What’s the biggest remaining taboo when it comes to male and female gender roles in 21st Century Britain? Is it women being soldiers or men being midwives? No, it’s neither, because while 11% of people think women shouldn’t be soldiers and 16% think men shouldn’t be midwives, there is ZERO per cent support amongst the British public for mums working more than their male partners.

That’s correct ZERO per cent.

And this statistic doesn’t come from a straw-poll taken down my local pub or a Mickey Mouse survey of 100 shoppers in the Milton Keynes branch of Mothercare last Tuesday—this comes from the 30th British Social Attitudes survey, which is described as “a critical gauge of public opinion [which is] used by the Government, journalists, opinion formers and academics”.

So this isn’t a survey that makes a passing contribution to the public discourse on gender once a year, it’s  a highly influential survey  that informs the Government policies which shape our everyday lives as men and women. According to the survey’s authors, the “gender role revolution”, which took off if the second half of the 20th Century has been matched by a marked change in public attitudes since they began collecting data in the early Eighties.

In 1984, for example, 45 per cent of men and 41 per cent of women agreed with this statement: “A man’s job is to earn money; a woman’s job is to look after the home and family”. By 2012 only 13 per cent of men and 12 per cent of women agreed.

So is the sexual revolution complete?

If you think that the sexual revolution is all about transforming women’s roles and opportunities, then the job is all but done when it comes to public attitudes. Only 13% of people agree with the man-hunt-woman-cook approach to gender and it’s a belief that’s fading fast with each passing generation. In total, while 28% of those over 65 support the gendered division of labour, only 4% of 18-25 year olds share this view.

But before we chaps throw our bowler hats in the hair and join our womenfolk in a chorus of Sisters Are Doing It For Themselves, what about the question of gender that is so taboo, that is doesn’t even warrant a passing mention in the narrative of the British Social Attitudes survey? I’m talking about the radical idea that dads might earn less than their partners.

You see, the idea that women take sole responsibility for home and family may well have disappeared and yet women, on average, still take prime responsibility for the home. This idea is covered quite extensively in the survey under the heading “attitudes have changed but have behaviours?” which provides the following factoids:

  • 6 in 10 women consider they do more than their fair share of the household work
  • Both men and women agree, that women spend much more time a week on average, both on household work and looking after family members

Is this the last big gender taboo?

But nowhere in the survey does anyone ask if women do their fair share of paid work. In fact the survey simply accepts the culturally held given that when it comes to family life, men will always be the primary breadwinners.

So while there has been a seismic shift away from the belief that women should be solely responsible for taking care of home and family—any movement away from the belief that women should the primary homemakers, while men should be the main breadwinners, is imperceptible.

This shows up in two key questions in the report. Firstly in questions about attitudes towards parental leave, which asked how mums and dads should share this entitlement. What they discovered was that 59% of us think women should take all or most of the parental leave entitlement, while 22% think it should be shared equally. The rest of us either haven’t got an opinion or think that nobody should be entitled to parental leave. But what about, dads taking all or most of the parental leave, well:

ZERO percent thought dads should take all or most parental leave

The second area of the survey that reveals a total lack of support amongst the British public for the idea that mums should “lean in” and take primary responsibility for paid work while dads “lean out” and take primary responsibility for the home and kids, is found in the answers to this question:

“What is the best and least desirable way for a family with child under school age to organise family and work life by sex.”

What this question reveals is possibly the most deeply ingrained, sexist belief, that is held by both men and women and impacts the life choices available to every young man and woman in the country.

In 21st Century Britain this is how we still think about gender roles:

  • 69% of us think dad should be the primary earner
  • 9% of us think mum and dad should share the earning responsibility equally
  • 19% of us are undecided
  • ZERO percent think mum should be the primary earner

There is very little difference between men’s and women’s attitudes on this question:

  • 71% of men and 68% of women think dad should be the primary earner
  • 9% of men and 10% of women think think mum and dad should share the earning responsibility equally
  • ZERO percent of men and women think mum should be the primary earner

What choice do men have?

What’s striking about this survey (apart from the fact that it fails to even question these ingrained beliefs that men should be the primary earner), is the lack of choice available to men, compared with women.

For women, there is fairly even support for the three main options of motherhood, which are to stay at home, to work part time or to work full time. As the survey reveals:

  • 33% of us think mums should stay at home until the children start school
  • 43% think mums should work part time until the children start school
  • 28% think mums should work full time once the kids start school

This range of choices simply isn’t available for most men, so much so, that the question of whether dads should stay at home, work part-time or work full-time isn’t even asked in the survey. What we can read from other questions in the survey is that:

  • 73% of us think dads should work full time
  • 5% of us think dads should work part time
  • ZERO percent of us think dads should stay at home full time

When you take this into account, it’s little wonder that there’s a “gender pay gap”; that dads get sidelined from their children’s lives when parents are separated and that men don’t do their “fair share” of unpaid work.

So how do we respond to this? Do we demand equal opportunities and choices for men? Do we demand that women start to do their fair share of paid work? Or do we simply accept that men and women have different and unequal desires when it comes prioritising career and family? We’d love to hear your views…….

—Photo credit: Flickr/Antony Pranata

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Article by Glen Poole author of the book Equality For Men

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  • Nigel

    I think you have found the real crucial issue. There is a big divide (as is often the case in human life) between what we believe we should say and what we actually do (a commom theme throughout the history of religions for instance). As you say “attitudes” appear to have changed yet the actuality of life, particularly for men, has not really changed. As you rightly point out this has been “hidden” simply because time after time research and surveys don’t ask or interrogate the data (quite probably because they are afraid of the answer). Dr. Hakim’s “Preference Theory” in fact simply charts the facts in our (and european socieities) but does show how in fact traditional patterns are remarkably consistent over time and society (in Europe at least). Consistently men continue to fill the primary breadwinner role, are assumed to be the backbone of the productive workforce and to have a responsibility for the financial welfare of partner and children. There has a been a lot of political and social wind behind women having “choice” yet for men these remain largely periferal (in the sense few men can exercise them once “responsible” for a family) for a very simple reason that somebody has to “take care of business”. Both at an individual level men still fulfil the role of earning the funds for the running costs of their family and at a macro level. In the latter case it is interesting to ponder the almost complete gender split in Sweden (which is one of the most gender segregated workforces in the world) where its huge productive sector is 80% male and the State funded sector simmilarly proportionately female. Of course this reflects a pattern of FT work for men and “flexible working” for women.
    I suspect the cynicism frequently expressed by men as they grow older reflects the actuality that however noble the expressed sentiments of the Social leadership the reality is men continue to have to fullfil much the same role as their fathers. In effect the changes have been that housework and indeed most work has been made much easier by technology (and exporting heavy industry) but the patterns are (as Dr. Hakim points out ) remarkable consistent. Control of reproduction means childcare is much briefer over a much longer life course. So in effect women have never had it so good if the desired outcome is lots of choices. For men the changes are less easy to discerne. As you say the focus has been on facilitating women’s good life. We’ve barely started to ask men what they’d like. Quite probably because the truth is if men did start to actively move their preferences to a more varied life who’d earn the money and pay the bills!
    One can perhaps see this in the occassional panics about “failure to launch”, “commitment phobes” and so on, all of which have a subtext of men not fulfilling their “responsibilities” (which are so socially embedded they usually aren’t even listed let alone decsribed). The northern european “one and a half” income family starts to look rather less radical and really just a codification of a very traditional patteren of behaviour in “post industrial” societies.
    Lets be really radical and start asking thse questions and stop treating men as a problem. One particularly annoying example is the frequently observed fact that generally new fathers increase their workload, often presented as though this is some sort of deliberate avoidance of childcare, rather than a practical response to needing money!!!!!

  • Wilma

    This is not surprising to me. I have been married for over three decades. My husband and I have raised two sons with me as primary earner. He did much of the housework, but I did cooking.

    I personally have lived through constant digs from females as to our arrangement. I never raised this issue with girlfriends, they would bring their disapproval up in various ways. That got to be pretty annoying.

    Many of my friends would self describe as “feminist” and can’t grasp their hypocrisy. Needless to say, I’m not a feminist and would describe myself as anti-feminist. I’m an anti-feminist BECAUSE I’m for legal and political equality defined as equal opportunity but not outcome.

    I strongly would like states to stay out of people’s lives and for the constant propagandizing as to how we should conduct our lives to stop! What is interesting is the survey solicits opinion as to how others should conduct their lives. That underlying assumption is being supported by conducting the survey the way it was.

    Good job pointing out the biases in this survey, clearly and rationally. This blog is one of the best I’ve ever read that focuses on men’s issues.

    Seems women and many men are convinced that men should work longer hours both in and out of the home. Some men I know do so at behest of their feminist partners. Maybe that is why feminist couples are less happy. Constant nit picking doesn’t work.

  • Nigel

    It is interesting about the whole debate on “work” paid and unpaid. In the various longitudinal “time use” surveys there is evidence on the gender split. These are for an ecomomist audience so tend not to get noticed. Anyway very broadly in the Scandinavian and Northern european economies men do more “total work” and the reverse is true in the south of europe. Though in fact the differences aren’t huge (apart from outliers such as Greece where women do quite a lot more total work).
    So that tends to indicate broadly “equal work” overall in the economically developed EU. It is broadly similar in the US and Canada by the way.
    Anyway in the comparative research on Gender “preferences” with regard to paid work actually done. Again though the overall pattern conforms to a “traditional” pattern there are variations from country to country. With a paradox that it appears women in those Scandinavian and Northern european countries are less work oriented . Bit of a chicken and egg here. As is it the wide availability of part time or flexible work that makes northern european women less work centred than their southern sisters? Or did that preference drive an economy to offer more part time work?
    Wilma, I do so agree that there should be a whole lot less Political (and state power) intervention in this to alow people to make their choices and balances as they wish within their practical means. Overall the “drift” over time appears to be more and more variety in the choices people make so time is on the side of feminist conception as each generation has and exercises new options in the “developed” world. What appears to be the case is a sort of Maoist desire to force the pace of change and in doing so often taking Stalinist approches to coerce changes. With, as you say, some entirely hypocritical, arguements.

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