How dads can help with the crisis facing working women

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February 4, 2021

Good morning, Broadsheet readers! Three women earn Golden Globe director noms, Bumble prices its IPO, and new research finds that men overwhelmingly want to be equal partners in caregiving—but few are actually doing it. Have a good Thursday.
– Just do it. As Fortune has reported (again and again), getting women’s careers back on track in a post-COVID world will require strong action from both government and employers. But when it comes to who does what in our daily lives, the responsibility hits, well, closer to home.
This morning, Fortune’s Maria Aspan reports on fresh research from New America, which sheds light on some of these caretaking dynamics. The think tank finds that 80% of men—and 91% of all survey respondents—say men and women should share care work equally. So far, so good. But, here’s the rub: only 46% of respondents said that’s what happens in real life.
New America kept digging, and found that many of the men who do take on a significant portion of caretaking have something in common: they’ve done it before. Indeed, many of these men are or have been “high-intensity” caregivers, responsible for an adult, or a child with medical or behavioral issues.
“Whether they choose to, or they have to—[that experience as a caregiver] that’s what changes them. That’s this transformative experience in their lives,” Brigid Schulte, director of New America’s Better Life Lab and author of the report, tells Maria. “So as a society, how do we get men from this abstract notion that care is valuable, and that they should do it, to actually doing it?”
From a societal perspective, surely one of the answers to this question is to support caregivers so they no longer have to choose between their jobs and their loved ones. (The survey finds that men who are high-intensity caregivers have faced many of the same career setbacks that the pandemic is now dealing out to women.) But on the level of individual households, the research suggests that the only way to solve this chicken-and-egg dilemma is for dads to just do it: stop thinking or talking about “pitching in” and start not just helping, but actually owning the responsibility for caretaking.
Easier said than done, I suppose. But if women can handle it, I trust men can too.
Kristen Bellstrom
kristen.bellstrom@fortune.com
@kayelbee
Today’s Broadsheet was curated by Emma Hinchliffe.

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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES

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- First couple. President Joe Biden and First Lady Jill Biden gave their first interview since moving into the White House. The couple talked about becoming "stronger in the fractured places" through grief and loss; running an administration where family members don't have offices in the West Wing; and taking turns supporting each other throughout their marriage. Dr. Biden also discussed her teaching and students. People
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: Incoming CEO Jane Fraser formed a new global operating team at Citigroup; along with the restructuring, Fraser named as her chief of staff Margo Pilic, currently finance lead for the Latin America institutional clients group. Actor Tracee Ellis Ross will serve as a diversity and inclusion adviser to Ulta Beauty. Universal Music Group named Menna Demessie, previously with the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation, SVP and executive director of its Task Force for Meaningful Change. Northwestern Mutual hired S&P Global's Laura Deaner as chief information security officer. Genesys named Kelly Battles to its operating committee and Sharon Virag as chief accounting officer.

CONTENT FROM PWC

What’s keeping companies from doing better?

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- Pay raise. Democrats in the U.S. have revived their fight to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 per hour. If that hike went into effect, 59% of the 32 million beneficiaries of the raise would be women, 31% would be Black, and 26% Latinx. CNBC
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PARTING WORDS

"I don’t want us to do that any more as a culture. I want us to just let people live."
-Singer Jazmine Sullivan on judging others. Her new EP is Heaux Tales.