Understand single fathers' financial needs and realities
Published July 8, 2013 5:53 PM
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Updated July 10, 2013 5:14 PM
1 Min Read
Mothers still dominate the single-family landscape, and their numbers have increased more than fourfold since 1960, Pew reports, but single-father households have grown some ninefold in the same period. Separate research indicates that fathers have a harder time talking to their children about financial matters than mothers, making retirement and savings education all the more important. Here are five quick peaks at single-father homes and working dads. [Images: Shutterstock]
Single-parent finance
In terms of household financial status, single fathers are much better off than single mothers, and much worse off than married fathers, writes Gretchen Livingston of the Pew Research Center. Median adjusted annual incomes for a single dad household of three is about $40,000 a far cry from the $70,000 median among households headed by married fathers, but much higher than that of households headed by single mothers, where the median adjusted annual income for a three-person household is only $26,000.
Living situations
Pew data say single fathers are more likely than single mothers to be living with a cohabiting partner (41% and 16%, respectively), but those are also likely to be the more disadvantaged of single-father homes. Fathers who live with a nonmarital partner (a situation that can present employee benefits challenges, such as health care eligibility to life insurance) are younger, less educated and less financially secure than those fathers raising children entirely on their own.
Race and the single father
Single fathers are on average younger and less likely to be white than their married counterparts, but are older and more likely to be white than single mothers. Single fathers are much less likely to be black 15% are as compared with single mothers (28%), but more likely to be black than fathers in married two-parent households (7%), Livingston says. The share of single fathers that is Hispanic is close to the share among single mothers (24% and 22%, respectively), but is higher than the share among married fathers (17%).
Flexible schedules
The Boston College study says that flexible work arrangements are one of the most important benefits a company can provide to enable its workers to better balance work and home life, and that, among those who dont, a high percentage believed that their employers would not support their doing so, meaning even more might want the arrangement. Three-quarters of fathers reported using some kind of flex-time, with most using it on an informal basis. Study authors hypothesize that men need flexibility on a less regular basis than women.
Gender neutrality
Fathers are becoming more involved domestic responsibilities 77% of them say they want to spend more time with their children on an average workday, but the Boston College study authors say there are still deeply embedded assumptions that when men become fathers, nothing will change on the work front. Organizational cultures need to adjust to the reality, they say, that fatherhood requires accommodation.
