The Real Gender Gap? Count the Dads in the Pediatrician's Office

A few weeks ago, the World Economic Forum released a report documenting the "Global Gender Gap." Each country was ranked according to the parity it had achieved on a number of dimensions such as workforce participation and health outcomes. To no one's surprise, the Nordic countries topped the list. The US was ranked 31st, below such countries as Belarus and Sri Lanka. As the study authors pointed out, parity does not imply that either gender is doing well.

It's interesting food for thought. But the question of whether girl and boy babies are vaccinated at equal rates is one thing. A more interesting question for the average woman in a developed country is who takes those girl and boy babies to get vaccinated? The answer offers a lot of insight into the reality of gender equity here in America in 2007.

I've got vaccinations on the brain because this morning my son, Jasper, went to the pediatrician's office for his six-month jabs. I tagged along this time for moral support, but my husband does a lot of work with vaccines, professionally, so pediatrician visits are his thing. He chose our doctor. Generally, he goes solo.

As usual, he emailed our son's stats (18 lbs 6 oz!) to the relatives. His pediatrician brother was suitably impressed with our kid's size, but was surprised that my husband had been present for the weighing and measuring. Seeing a dad at the pediatrician's office, he wrote, is a "rarity." Statistics back him up. One recent study of six community practices in New England found that only 9% of pediatrician visits featured a father attending alone.

I have been trying to figure out why this is. Sure, Bureau of Labor Statistics figures show that in 30% of married couple families with children under age 18, only the husband works outside the home (in 4%, only the wife works). But both are working in 64% of the cases. That's a much bigger number than nine. Indeed, roughly a third of married women with children under age six work full-time. If only 9% of pediatrician visits involve a father showing up, solo, that means the majority of married women who have small kids and work full-time are still doing doctor duty.

Maybe, in these families, the wife earns less than the husband. But this is a chicken and egg question. While a number of pediatricians' offices do offer evening or weekend hours (in which case, why aren't the dads there then?), taking a kid to the doctor generally involves taking time off work. You come late. You leave early. You race over on your lunch break and watch the clock the whole time. There is some evidence that women optimize for different things in life than men (a balanced life, vs., say, status). Also, kids don't go to the doctor that often. But if you are the one who always has to take time off work for doctors' visits or other events during the day, or take time off when kids are sick, it does affect your availability for work. The fact that many fathers do not arrange their work lives to accommodate this - because they trust that their wives will pick up the slack - is one of the reasons men earn more than women. Yes, the vast majority of women who work full-time enjoy caring for their kids (which is why working moms and stay-at-home moms report spending roughly the same amount of time tending to the emotional needs of their children; working moms compensate for having two jobs by sleeping less and doing a lot less housework). But no one really enjoys holding a wriggling baby's arms while the doctor jabs the kid in the leg.

Yet someone has to do it. The truth is, there is a certain amount of work associated with parenthood that simply has to be done. You can outsource a lot of it. You can hire folks to do meal prep, laundry, vacuuming, and so forth. But almost no one would send anyone but a parent to the doctor's office. If fathers only make 9% of pediatrician visits solo, that means we're a long way from domestic equality.

We may never reach parity. Anyone who's managed an office knows that men can be very good at getting out of work that they don't perceive as high value, or don't want to do. But things are changing. Fathers spend 153% more time on child care each week than they did in 1965. It's still less than moms, but not as much less as it used to be. More women than men now go to college which, over time, will change the dynamic in families of who has the breadwinning job. And hey, my husband takes our baby to the doctor. This morning at the office, I saw two other dads with kids in Baby Bjorns. That's reason for optimism - even if the US never overtakes Sweden (or Belarus) atop the World Economic Forum list.

Comments

[mungley]

Gender bias runs both ways. What's this comment supposed to do?
"Anyone who's managed an office knows that men can be very good at getting out of work that they don't perceive as high value, or don't want to do." Are you suggesting that female employees are not good at getting out of jobs they don't want?

I have been to far more "solo" pediatric appointments with my children than not. I'm male. Of course they've never really been solo; I've always had a child with me.

[BonnieJW]

My husband was always the one who took the kids to the doctors, dentists, went to parent/teacher conferences and invite your parent to lunch days. His office has always been in our home and his time was always his own to schedule while mine was the opposite. I always worked in an office and had trouble getting off work, even with an understanding boss.

I can remember when all three of our daughters were in grade school the same year and my wonderful husband had lunch with each of them the same day. He valiantly consumed THREE awful school lunches because his girls got a kick out of having him show up at school.

Isn't that what makes a father fabulous? They always show up, no matter what.

[justannesopinion]

I don't doubt that mothers bring children for most pediatrician visits, but this piece would be more informative if it mentioned what percentage of visits were by both parents (I assume there must be some since "solo" keeps cropping up to modify the mothers' 9%,) and what percentage were by nonparent caretakers such as grandparents, etc.

[Ben Dixon]

Shouldn't the bigger issue be that children are being taken to get thier vaccinations regarldless of who takes them? Come on, which is the bigger problem, that a kid didn't get vaccinated or that the kids mother took the kid to the doctor instead of the father?