Dads are playing a more active role in many aspects of family life once considered the exclusive domain of moms. While the recession can be credited for some of the blurring of gender roles, it is also the result of a longer-term, generational shift in attitudes and expectations. Today’s new dads enter fatherhood with far fewer gender-based preconceptions of what parenthood should be compared with their own fathers. Traditionally mom-focused brands and retailers have only begun to reach out to the new, more family-focused generation of dads, leaving a significant market opportunity largely untapped.

This report provides an in-depth analysis of what’s important to dads as they engage more deeply in everyday parenting, including:

• An analysis of dads’ employment status, childcare participation, and family living arrangements; and how these have been impacted by the recession and its aftermath.

• A close look at how dads spend time during the week, including the reality, their ideal, and their priorities for a hypothetical extra hour in the day.

• A review of several marketers’ efforts to connect with dads; as well as campaigns that have drawn critical responses from an increasingly vocal online dad community.

• Dads’ perspective on who takes responsibility for most day-to-day parenting duties, including child care, shopping, cooking, and laundry.

• Dads’ greatest parenting concerns and pressures, and how becoming a parent changes dads’ purchasing behaviors, priorities, and attitudes.

• What dads really want for Father’s Day.

This report builds on findings published in Mintel’s Marketing to Dads—U.S., August 2010. It also addresses dads’ perspective on broader themes discussed in Mintel’s Marketing to Moms—U.S., February 2012.

Dads are defined in most of this report as male parents or guardians of children younger than 18 who live in the home. Moms, included in the research for the sake of comparison, are defined as female parents or guardians of children younger than 18 living in the home.

For the purposes of this report, Mintel commissioned exclusive consumer research through Toluna to explore the attitudes of fathers about shopping habits, home life, and childrearing. Mintel was responsible for the survey design, data analysis and reporting. Fieldwork was conducted in December 2011 among a sample of 1,400 adults aged 18+ with internet access who are parents or guardians of children younger than 18 who live in the household. Quotas were set to ensure the respondents were proportionally balanced based on age, income and gender. Mintel also set quotas based on the age of the child to ensure adequate representation within ages 3 and younger, aged 4-5, aged 6-11 and aged 12-17 groups. 

Please note that Mintel’s exclusive surveys are conducted online and in English only. Hispanics who are not online and/or do not speak English are not included in Mintel’s survey results.

There follows a list of abbreviations used in this report:

Generations are discussed within this report, and they are defined as:

*Also known as Generation Y or Echo Boomers

** Previously known as Post-Millennials