(Illustration by iStock/Yuki Mao)
Caregiving is a fundamental aspect of being a human; “a species condition.” Providing care is foundational to meeting a broad swath of globally agreed development goals, including United Nations SDG 3, which promotes healthy lives and well-being for all at all ages. Recent research surveying respondents in nearly 20 countries shows that men—like women—want care to be central to their lives. However, as the share of women in the workforce has steadily increased, men’s involvement in caregiving has not progressed at a commensurate pace according to UN Women.
Men’s caregiving benefits women, children, and societies at large, it also brings great benefits to men themselves. Men who are actively involved in caregiving often experience deep satisfaction and increased confidence as caregivers. Research shows male caregiving is associated with improved physical and mental health, better relationship quality, and even healthier lifestyle choices. It contributes to greater gender equity through balancing care responsibilities, giving women more freedom to pursue economic opportunities and improving health outcomes. Children also benefit significantly—fathers’ engagement is linked to better cognitive and physical development, richer language acquisition, and stronger emotional bonds—whether the father is biological or a committed social caregiver.
Despite the benefits, barriers to increased male engagement in caregiving persist. A research project involving two authors of this article looked across diverse geographic and socioeconomic contexts and found that the following three principles help to overcome these barriers: (1) designing and designating solutions specifically for men; (2) reducing conflicts between caregiving and breadwinning; and (3) building supportive social networks that encourage men’s participation in caregiving.
With this article, we draw from the experiences of international development practitioners to apply these principles to policies and practices related to male caregiving. Given that most research and programs on male caregiving focus on fathers, we refer to fathers throughout. However, we believe our principles can be broadly applied to boost men’s caregiving for other family members and loved ones, including their wives and parents and extended biological and/or “social” family. We also believe more attention should be paid to the role of boys in caregiving.
1. Designing and designating solutions specifically for men
Caregiving is often viewed less as a set of complex, learned skills than as a group of activities that come naturally to women. In fact, care work is skilled labor that requires significant investments of time to master. Absent direct skill development, fathers often both feel incompetent when fulfilling care tasks and are presumed to be incompetent. Often, as fathers give up or are ushered away, the work defaults to women.
Skills-building initiatives for fathers and couples designed with men in mind. First-time parenthood marks a huge change for men. Just like their partners, they need support to build their confidence and capacities as parents. For example, Equimundo’s Program P fosters active fatherhood from prenatal care through children’s early years. In Rwanda, Program P is known as Bandebereho—“role model” in Kinyarwanda—and is implemented by community health-care workers. Among the men who were invited to attend, more than 80% stayed for all the activities, which involved meeting weekly over 4-5 months; women joined for about half the sessions. Results were measured by randomized control trials at 21 months and six years after rollout. The studies show robust results. Male participants reported engaging significantly more in caregiving at home than did those in the control group. Female participants reported facing less physical and sexual violence than did women in the control group. And both men and women in the program reported punishing their children less, using modern contraception more often, and engaging in more equitable household decision making. In a qualitative review, male Bandebereho participants identified various benefits to sharing household tasks more equitably, including both time and financial rewards.
Dad tech. Media solutions, which can include promotional videos, radio messages, and cellphone parenting apps, also offer an effective way to increase male engagement in caregiving, according to a review of father-inclusive interventions in low- and middle-income countries. Digital tools can help fathers learn on their own schedules without having to sacrifice time spent on generating income. For example, mobile health (mHealth) solutions employing voice messages on maternal and child health designed for fathers have proven effective at improving pre- and post-natal health outcomes.
2. Reducing conflicts between breadwinning and caregiving
Men’s involvement in care is influenced by the prevailing gender norm that they prioritize income generation to meet their family’s practical needs above all else. Increasing men’s role in caregiving also requires navigation of the economic pressures that most men face.
Supportive workplaces foster caregiving equity. Embedding support for men’s participation in caregiving in their places of employment enables them to learn new skills without sacrificing a day’s wages. The Istanbul University Institute of Child Health (IUICH) and Turkey’s Mother–Child Education Foundation developed a parental education intervention for expectant fathers in large workplaces. Physicians were trained to deliver lessons on health and nutrition during pregnancy, supporting women during childbirth and breastfeeding, and other topics. “Graduates” received a certificate attesting to their status as a “trained father,” which, according to the researchers, “many were proud to hang on the wall in the new baby’s room.” In phone interviews three months and nine months after their baby’s birth, participants were more likely than non-participant fathers to report engaging in positive health behaviors and increased participation in housework and childcare.
Initiatives such as these are also important to signal organizational support for caregiving, helping men manage the societal pressure to put all of their focus on income generation. In a survey study of over 16,000 parents working in 55 companies based in Latin America, men who reported to managers who facilitated work-life balance, relative to those who did not, were found to participate in more daily caregiving activities, such as eating, playing, and reading with their children.
Integrating caregiving in informal economies. Measures that seek to reduce the conflict between caregiving and breadwinning are rare for workers employed in informal economies; which, in the development world, is the vast majority of workers. Based on recent World Bank data, 57.1% of workers in low- and middle-income economies were self-employed. Many of these workers are engaged in the agricultural sector.
Development organizations have implemented programming that promotes men and women sharing the responsibilities of income generation and caregiving to improve productivity and household well-being. The expectation is that through joint planning and cooperation in both farm work and care work, farming couples can improve efficiency and household income. One study analyzed just such a program working with smallholder coffee farming households in rural southwest Tanzania. Alongside standard agricultural interventions such as farmer field schools and training in good harvest practices, this initiative included a couples’ self-assessments and group discussions of gender norms and division of household roles, responsibilities, and resources. The program resulted in increased women’s participation in decision-making and farm management, and men spending more time on domestic tasks as compared to men in couples that did not receive the intervention.
To date, such initiatives have aimed to incentivize men to include women in agricultural production—often within the context of cash crops from which women are typically excluded—to increase women’s empowerment and agency. In the future, such programs could also highlight the vital role of male care work to a household’s optimum functioning.
3. Building supportive social networks and systems to foster caring roles for men
While caregiving is fulfilling, it can be exhausting and marginalizing. This may be especially true for men who live in cultures where male caregiving is not widely embraced. In such environments, social support is key. Peer networks and other supportive environments can help men deepen their commitment to care activities that fall outside the norm.
Supporting men’s engagement in caregiving might also seem like a natural starting point, but research suggests that social support adds much more value when the first two principles— caregiving solutions developed specifically for men and finding ways to address their economic concerns—are already in place. When men have the required skills, and economic security, they will benefit the most from the type of supports that can help them embrace the role of caregiver.
The power of peer support groups. Men’s support groups are an effective, low-cost method for reinforcing new caregiving behaviors. The World Bank’s “(Future) Husband Schools,” developed with Equimundo, has enrolled over 24,000 husbands and future husbands in the Sahel region. The program offers a men-only space for discussing issues like healthy relationships, pre- and post-natal care, and sharing household responsibilities without fear of ridicule. The program succeeded in increasing the amount of time men spend on caregiving and delivered considerable child and maternal health benefits. Demonstrating the tendency of new social norms to spread, in Niger, the program created positive spillover effects into other villages, such as increases in health center births and reproductive health visits.
Connecting fathers to mentors. Mentorship programs can also help men feel more supported in their caregiving. In the Responsible, Engaged, and Loving (REAL) Fathers initiative, led in Uganda by Georgetown University's Institute for Reproductive Health, young fathers (ages 16-25) of 1-3-year-old children selected trusted elders in their community to be their mentors. After receiving gender-equity training, mentors discussed positive parenting and communications skills with their mentees. New capabilities were reinforced through couples’ dialogues, group sessions, and community celebrations that acknowledged the fathers’ and their families’ efforts.
A randomized control trial found that fathers who participated in the REAL project, as compared to those in a control group, reported two-to-four times as many interactions with their children and significantly more frequent healthy parenting behaviors a year later, such as praising their children and saying “I love you.” Participants were also more involved in household chores than those in the control group. A qualitative survey of the project showed that men valued having the space to engage one-on-one with their mentors on sensitive topics. This support helped men navigate negative feedback from community members who mocked them for taking on caregiving responsibilities and household chores.
Next Steps
As we have seen, when men have the resources, skills, and support they need to engage in care work, they, their families, and their communities can thrive.
More research on the benefits of and barriers to increased male caregiving in low- and middle-income countries is needed to help policymakers support measures that address this rising demand. In particular, research on the benefits and impact of paid paternity leave is lacking in low- and middle-income countries.
Additionally, care-focused policies for men who are self-employed and/or in informal employment are rare in these countries. Many would likely benefit from cash transfers to support paternity leave, while couples’ dialogues could help families capitalize on the rewards of shared caregiving and income generation.
Beyond fatherhood, boyhood is another vital period when caregiving can be nurtured. Thanks to the brain’s heightened neuroplasticity during childhood and adolescence, introducing caring routines at a young age—such as assisting sisters and parents with chores and childcare—may have lasting positive effects into their adult lives. And, just like mothers with daughters, fathers can serve as positive caregiving mentors to their sons; in fact, one of the strongest factors associated with men’s participation in care work is their reporting that their own fathers carried out care work, research in multiple settings has found.
Prerna Boys School in India teaches boys that caring is a fundamental component of the essential skills needed to “live life well.” In addition to routine school subjects, boys are taught care-focused skills like cooking. According to Sahni, one of this article’s coauthors, longitudinal studies show that the boys become more engaged in housework than before, take pride in their contributions and enjoy increased respect at home. Few initiatives have, however, folded caregiving lessons into their work with boys. The potential long-term benefits of caregiving to boys warrant further study.
The world has more care needs than we are equipped to handle. Enlisting men and boys to build a more caring world is crucial to ending the gender gap in care and ensuring the health and well-being for people of all ages. Caregiving benefits carers alongside those receiving care. Increasing evidence suggests that men—like women—want care to be central to their lives. Like all work, it is demanding, but when our loved ones need us, we all want to be there for them. It’s time for international development programs to do more to support more inclusive pathways to a more caring world.
Read more stories by Mara Bolis, Hannah Riley Bowles, Gary Barker, Marc Grau Grau, Laura Rawlings & Urvashi Sahni.