During the Great Recession, the number of stay-at-home fathers surged. That had a lot to do with the characteristics of the recession. Not only did the nation lose millions of jobs, but a disproportionate share of those jobs were lost in male dominated industries like construction and manufacturing.
About nine in ten construction workers are male. As reported in the Wall Street Journal, the share of married couple families with a working mother and a nonworking dad rose from four point eight percent in two thousand and six to seven point four percent by two thousand and nine.
These data are supplied by the U.S. Labor Department. However, by last year, the share of families with a working mom and a nonworking father was back down to five point three percent – equal to its long run average since nineteen ninety four.
Still, the data indicate that there has been an increase in the number of stay at home dads regardless of what point we find ourselves at in the economic cycle. Among married couple families with children, both parents were employed nearly sixty one percent of the time last year, up from the prior year, but still well below the level observed in two thousand and eight.