4125.0 - Gender Indicators, Australia, Aug 2013  
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 29/08/2013   
   Page tools: Print Print Page Print all pages in this productPrint All
MEDIA RELEASE
30 August 2013
Embargoed: 11.30 am Canberra Time
153/2013

Father’s Day 2013: It’s official - dads aren’t getting any younger!


We love our Aussie dads, so in celebration of Father’s Day this Sunday the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has gathered some facts about the favourite men in our lives.

The median age of our dads who had a child in 2011 was 33 years, compared to just over 32 years in 2001.

Our latest Census data shows that there were more than 2.5 million couple families with children, and over 12,000 of these families had six or more kids. That’s a lot of socks for dad.

We also found that there were almost 160,000 single male parents, and that just under 700 children were living in male same-sex couple families.

More than 90% of dads with kids under 15 years living with them had jobs in 2012-13 and most worked full-time. Those dads who were employed full-time spent about 41 hours per week at work.

But dads were also busy after work, with 46% of dads with kids aged up to 17 years volunteering time to help an organisation or group, with 59% of the volunteers helping with sporting or other physical recreation activities.

Dads spent almost four hours a day caring for children in 2006. Dads also work around the house, with those with full-time jobs in 2006 spending around 80 minutes a day on domestic work, dads with part-time jobs worked for over two hours a day around the house, and dads not employed spent three hours per day on domestic activities.

Of the 366,000 dads who had children living elsewhere with another parent in 2009-10, 22% had their child stay overnight with them at least once a week and a further 27% had their child stay overnight with them at least once a month.

For more information about fathers see the ABS online products: Census 2011, Gender Indicators, Australia (cat. no. 4125.0), Voluntary Work, Australia, 2010 (cat. no. 4441.0), How Australians Use Their Time, 2006 (cat. no. 4153.0), Family Characteristics, Australia 2009-10 (cat. no. 4442.0), and Births, Australia (cat. no. 3301.0).

Media notes:
  • When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.