Press Releases

June 12, 2025

Father’s Day Brief: A Gift for Dad that Benefits the Whole Family

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACTS:

Daniel L. Carlson / University of Utah / daniel.carlson@fcs.utah.edu
Richard J. Petts / Ball State University / rjpetts@bsu.edu

AUSTIN, TX, June 12, 2025—Dads, are you tired of getting ties and socks and grooming kits you don’t need for Father’s Day? How about flipping the script and giving your family a gift — one that will give you a lot more joy over the long run than another personalized mug or pint glass? The gift we refer to is the gift of your time in childcare and housework. It’s a gift that truly keeps on giving, benefiting you, your kids, your partner, and your relationships for years to come.

When fathers share childcare and housework equally with their partners, both they and their partners report better relationship quality, including less conflict, more relationship satisfaction, better communication, and more sexual intimacy. Children with involved dads report stronger relationships with their fathers, are healthier and happier overall, and are even less stressed as adults. Fathers themselves also benefit personally from doing childcare and housework, as enhanced relationship quality from sharing the load leads to greater life satisfaction and better physical and mental health.

The benefits of father involvement at home apply not just to physical household labor but also to cognitive labor, which is the mental work of managing a household. For example, while cooking dinner is a physical household task, planning weekly meals is a mental one. Both mothers and fathers who share such organizing and planning tasks report lower levels of stress and fewer depressive symptoms than when mothers do most of this work. Additionally, both mothers and fathers also report higher relationship satisfaction when cognitive labor is shared equally. In fact, fathers’ sharing the mental labor matters more for parents’ relationship satisfaction than the division of physical housework tasks.

So, dads, this Father’s Day think about giving your family the gift of your time in housework and childcare. Doing so might not just be the greatest Father’s Day gift you ever got or gave yourself, it’s also likely to make your wife a lot happier than the card or flowers you got her for Mother’s Day (nice as those may have been). In turn, instead of being treated as a household helper who receives orders from your wife, she may treat you as an equal partner in parenting and housework – enabling you to be closer to your family and reap all the benefits that come from these enriched relationships.

May 23, 2024

NEW FROM CCF! Men Provide Less Unpaid Care for Family and Friends Than Women, But Only Among Heterosexuals

AUSTIN, TX – May 23, 2024

It might not seem surprising that women provide more unpaid care to family and friends with illness and disability than men. However, is this only true for heterosexual women partnered with men? Are there differences in unpaid caregiving between men and women who identify as sexual minorities? In the context of an aging U.S. population and an increasing number of Americans identifying as sexual minorities, it is critical to understand patterns of unpaid caregiving and who is more likely to bear the burdens and reap the benefits.

A briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Who cares and caring for whom? Unpaid caregiving by gender and sexual identity”, summarizes new research on how providing unpaid care for family and friends differs by gender, sexual orientation, and partnership status.

In an article published online in Demography, professor Zhe (Meredith) Zhang (California State University Los Angeles), together with Madeline Smith-Johnson and Bridget Gorman (Rice University), used data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System to generate a probability-based sample of U.S. adults to examine how unpaid caregiving is related to gender and sexual identity. They also compared individuals’ contributions to unpaid caregiving by partnership status.

Zhang and colleagues found that it is not universal for men to do less unpaid care relative to women. Lower rates of caregiving among men relative to women were restricted to heterosexuals. Gay and bisexual men were just as likely to do unpaid care as lesbian and bisexual women.

When examining the role of partnership status, unpartnered bisexual men had higher rates of caregiving when compared to unpartnered heterosexual men, unpartnered gay men, and partnered bisexual men. Gay and lesbian women did not differ in caregiving by partnership status, but partnered heterosexual women were slightly more likely to provide care than heterosexual women without a partner.

With respect to the recipients of unpaid care, providing care for parents was typical across gender, sexual identity, and partnership status. Heterosexual caregivers were more likely to provide care for partners, whereas sexual minority caregivers appeared more likely to provide care for grandparents and friends.

As Zhang and colleagues summarize the takeaway: “Altogether, our findings help advance understanding of caregiving and changing family ties in an era of population aging and increasing diversity in sexual identities.”

FURTHER INFORMATION

To contact lead author Zhe (Meredith) Zhang, email her at mzhang69@calstatela.edu.

LINKS

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2024/05/23/unpaid-caregiving-brief-report/
Press release: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2024/05/23/unpaid-caregiving-press-release/

ABOUT CCF

The Council on Contemporary Families, based at the University of Texas-Austin, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization of family researchers and practitioners that seeks to further a national understanding of how America’s families are changing and what is known about the strengths and weaknesses of different family forms and various family interventions.

The Council helps keep journalists informed of new and forthcoming research on gender and family-related issues via the CCF Network. To locate researchers or request copies of previous research briefs, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com, cell 360-556-9223.

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

May 23, 2024

May 31, 2023

New From CCF! Breastfeeding Benefits Are Modest, And Reach Some Children More Than Others

AUSTIN, TX – MAY 31, 2023

Major health and medical organizations universally recommend six months or more of exclusive breastfeeding to promote children’s development. But meeting this ideal is tough for many mothers. Breastfeeding is time-consuming, labor-intensive, and requires a lot of support from partners and others. Thus, it is not surprising that only 25% of U.S. infants are exclusively breastfed for the recommended six months, and breastfeeding rates are lower among mothers with fewer economic and social resources. Public health initiatives consider increasing rates of breastfeeding in these populations of mothers imperative to improving children’s health and wellbeing.

However, recent research indicates that the benefits of breastfeeding have been overstated, leading some to call into question the assumption that “breast is best.”

A briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Best for Whom? Breastfeeding and Child Development”, summarizes new research on the relationship between breastfeeding and a comprehensive set of longer-term child development outcomes.

In an article published today online in Social Forces, professors Jessica Houston Su (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Kerri Raissian (University of Connecticut), and doctoral student Jiyeon Kim (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), used longitudinal data from a nationally representative sample of children aged 4-14 to evaluate the relationship between breastfeeding and children’s body mass index (BMI), behavioral development, and cognitive skills. They used cutting-edge statistical techniques to compare children who were breastfed to children who were never breastfed but had very similar characteristics. They also grouped children based on their likelihood of being breastfed and compared the effects of breastfeeding on child development across these different groups.

Su and colleagues found that the benefits of breastfeeding are modest and distributed unequally. They report that breastfeeding provides small benefits for children’s behavioral development, math scores, and academic ability, but only among children who were highly likely to breastfeed. In contrast, among children least likely to breastfeed, breastfeeding appeared to provide small benefits for children’s reading comprehension and vocabulary.

Su and colleagues suggest effects of breastfeeding are incredibly challenging to isolate from the costs and benefits associated with the practice. For example, breastfeeding is associated with prolonged earnings losses for mothers, and in families with fewer economic and social resources, those losses may swamp any benefits of breastfeeding for children. In contrast, mothers who have economic and social advantages are more likely to breastfeed, and this bundle of resources may already provide strong benefits for children’s development, washing out any additional benefits of breastfeeding.

Su and colleagues’ study suggests that the children most likely to benefit from breastfeeding are those with other social and economic advantages, that benefits of breastfeeding are modest, and that breastfeeding is only one of numerous biological and environmental factors that shape children’s development. As Su and colleagues summarize the takeaway: “Efforts to increase breastfeeding rates among populations that are least likely to breastfeed are unlikely to close disparities in child development…To level the playing field, rather than merely telling mothers that “breast is best,” policies should focus on reducing structural barriers and economic costs for mothers who want to breastfeed.”

FURTHER INFORMATION

To contact lead author Jessica Houston Su, email her at jhs@email.unc.edu.

LINKS

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/31/breastfeeding-and-child-development-brief-report/
Press release: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/31/breastfeeding-and-child-development-press-release/

ABOUT CCF

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

May 31, 2023

May 3, 2023

New From CCF! It’s Not a Zero-Sum Game: Handling the Mental Load of Monitoring Household Needs Increases Stress and Depression for Mothers; Sharing That Load Decreases Fathers’ Stress and Depression

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

AUSTIN, TX – May 11, 2023

Here’s a great tip for dads who want to give their partners a Mother’s Day gift that will last all year long. Skip the flowers and commit to sharing more of the invisible mental and emotional work of anticipating the family’s needs over the next year and planning how to meet them. Such cognitive labor is a major but largely unrecognized source of stress and depression for mothers. But here’s the good news: Fathers who take more responsibility for such work report less stress and depression than those who don’t. Sharing the load can make for a Happy Father’s Day as well as a Happy Mother’s Day.

A briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Managing the household is a stressor for mothers but not fathers”,summarizes new research on how the sharing of cognitive or mental labor, such as anticipating and monitoring family needs, organizing and planning, and making decisions, related to mothers’ and fathers’ psychological well-being during Fall 2020.

In an article published this week online in Society and Mental Health, professors Richard Petts (Ball State University) and Daniel Carlson (University of Utah) used data from 1,765 partnered parents from the Study on Parents’ Divisions of Labor During COVID-19 to examine parents’ time in, and division of, cognitive labor in Fall 2020. They also examined how the division of cognitive labor related to mothers’ and fathers’ stress levels and depressive symptoms.

Petts and Carlson found that mothers spent over twice as much time on cognitive labor per week compared to fathers (5 hours vs. 2 hours per week). Notably, mothers reported that the division of cognitive labor was more unequal than the division of housework and childcare, suggesting that inequalities in the often “hidden” and never-ending mental work required to run a household may be at the core of persistent inequalities in domestic labor.

When examining associations between the share of cognitive labor and parents’ psychological well-being, mothers who were more responsible for cognitive labor reported feeling more stressed and depressed. However, fathers who took on greater responsibility for cognitive labor actually reported feeling less stressed and depressed.

As Petts and Carlson summarize the takeaway: “As long as gendered norms of care and the parenting double standard persist, gender inequality in domestic labor and well-being will continue. We need to change our cultural expectations about carework and provide more structural opportunities for fathers to be more engaged at home (e.g., remote work, paid leave) to reduce the burdens on mothers, reduce mothers’ stress, and promote greater gender equality at home.”

FURTHER INFORMATION

To contact lead author Richard Petts, email him at rjpetts@bsu.edu.

LINKS

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/03/cognitive-labor-and-parents-well-being-brief-report/
Press release: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/05/03/cognitive-labor-and-parents-well-being-press-release/

ABOUT CCF

Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

May 11, 2023

April 18, 2023

NEW FROM CCF! Mothers’ Concerns About COVID-19 and Other Illnesses Keep Them Out of the Workplace

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Daniel L. Carlson / University of Utah / daniel.carlson@fcs.utah.edu

AUSTIN, TX – April 20, 2023

A briefing paper released today from the Council on Contemporary Families, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place: Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic about Health Concerns and US Mothers’ Employment”, summarizes new research on how mothers’ concerns about community COVID-19 transmission affected their labor force participation and suggests that such concerns may exacerbate gender inequality as the threat of new pandemics and infectious diseases rises.

In an article published in Socius, professors Daniel Carlson (University of Utah), Priya Fielding-Singh (University of Utah), Richard Petts (Ball State University), and Kristi Williams (The Ohio State University) used data from 263 partnered US mothers who were employed prior to the pandemic to examine an overlooked reason why mothers’ labor force participation was affected by Covid-19, independent of work layoffs, school closures, and other external factors. They discovered that mothers’ worries about COVID-19 reduced the likelihood of their staying employed, and even when they stayed employed, led them to work fewer hours per week.

Carlson and colleagues also identified two key reasons why worried mothers participated less in the paid work force:

Children of mothers who worried more about COVID-19 transmission spent less time at school or daycare and more time at home.
Having children at home increased mothers’ stress, constrained their ability to work, and reduced their work hours.

Since mothers typically take primary emotional and physical responsibility for managing family health, recent and future surges in serious transmittable disease — not limited to COVID-19, but including flu, RSV, and strep throat — may negatively affect mothers’ job prospects and career advancement.

As Carlson and colleagues summarize the takeaway: “If we fail to address mothers’ concerns about COVID and other infectious diseases as they arise, current and future pandemics will continue to dampen mothers’ employment and have substantial consequences for gender equality.”

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION

To contact lead author Daniel Carlson, email him at Daniel.Carlson@fcs.utah.edu.

LINKS

Brief report: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/04/18/lessons-from-the-covid-19-pandemic-about-health-concerns-and-us-mothers-employment/
Press release: https://sites.utexas.edu/contemporaryfamilies/2023/04/18/lessons-from-the-covid-19-pandemic-about-health-concerns-and-us-mothers-employment-press-release/

ABOUT CCF

Follow us! @CCF_Families and https://www.facebook.com/contemporaryfamilies
Read our blog CCF @ The Society Pages – https://thesocietypages.org/ccf/

April 20, 2023

October 14, 2022

NEW FROM CCF! No More in the Shadows: Racism, Family Structure, and Black Families

AUSTIN – 10/13/2022: Why does family structure—aka marriage–remain such an enduring explanation for Black-White inequality in the US? That’s the central question in a new article, “Racism, Family Structure, and Black Families,” made available this week as an open-access preprint shared at SocArxiv. The article has been accepted for the forthcoming Council on Contemporary Families anthology, Families as They Really Are published by Norton Books.

Lead author, University of Tennessee sociologist Deadric Williams, has a detailed answer you can read in the new chapter. But he also has an answer to the central question in brief: “The belief that marriage is an inequality reducing mechanism serves as a racial ideology maintaining the status quo.”

The new article brings the receipts. In particular, Williams’ article, coauthored by Caroline Sanner (Virginia Tech), Todd Jensen (UNC-Chapel Hill), and Laura Simon (Mercer University), offers a history of claims that family structure is to blame for inequality, starting with the Moynihan Report of 1965. The authors review evidence for its limitations and set forward an alternative way to understand the many varieties of families that exist.

Dr. Williams explains: “We know that when compared to White Americans, African Americans are less likely to marry and more likely to experience a non-marital birth.” He continues, “Yet prior studies show that family formations do not account for the Black-White inequality gap.” The authors show how the benefits of family structure are not equally distributed between Black and White families when it comes to child outcomes. These patterns parallel results in education, health, and wealth accumulation outcomes, to name a few.

“With scant evidence, family formations remain an enduring explanation for scholars, layperson, and policymakers alike. Entire foundations and grants programs are built around supporting this line of thinking. Acting as if people are already on equal footing, and that ‘these days’ everyone starts with equal chances, can help people make sense of racial inequality as something that is the consequence of personal choices. But repeating that story again and again doesn’t make it so,” notes Virginia Rutter, CCF senior scholar and editor of the new edition of Families as They Really Are.

Dr. Williams and his colleagues note: “Family structure is a racial ideology based on the erroneous notion that (1) race is an essentialist characteristic and (2) individual-level characteristics (e.g., family structure) account for racial inequality. We conclude the chapter by championing Critical Race Theory as a powerful tool for charting a path forward for understanding African American families.”

-MORE-

REFERENCE: Williams, D. T., Sanner, C., Jensen, T. M., & Simon, L. (2022, October 7). Racism, Family Structure, and Black Families. https://doi.org/10.31235/osf.io/3u6jn

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Deadric T. Williams, Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, dwill196@utk.edu. Dr. Williams is a keynote speaker at the NCFR annual conference, November 18, 2022, on “Bringing Racism out of the Shadows in Family Science.”

To learn more about Families as They Really Are and the forthcoming 3^rd edition, contact:

Virginia Rutter, Professor (retired), Department of Sociology, Framingham State University, vrutter@framingham.edu. Dr. Rutter is editor, with Kristi Williams (Ohio State University) and Barbara Risman (University of Illinois at Chicago).

-MORE-

The Council helps keep journalists informed of notable work on family-related issues via the CCF Network. To join the CCF Network, or for further media assistance, please contact Stephanie Coontz, Director of Research and Public Education, at coontzs@msn.com, cell 360-556-9223.

Read our blog Families as They Really Are – https://thesocietypages.org/families/

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October 13, 2022