Men are spending more time looking after their children – and it’s not just cultural, it’s in their genes | Jonathan Kennedy

New research turns on its head the idea that the cascade of hormones brought on by parenthood is limited to mothers

• Jonathan Kennedy teaches politics and global health at Queen Mary University of London and is the author of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History

My neighbour chuckled when I told him I planned to take six months off work to help care for my newborn daughter. In the 1970s when he was a young father, he told me, men would go straight from the labour ward to the pub to wet the baby's head and be back in the office first thing the next morning.

A great deal has changed in the past 50 years. Now fathers tend to be much more involved in looking after infants than previous generations. And yet, women still have primary responsibility for looking after infants in most heterosexual relationships. The average dad in the 70s did just 22 minutes of childcare a day. Today, the figure is up to 71 minutes, although mums are still much higher at 162. And fewer than a third of eligible fathers take the two weeks of paternity leave they are entitled to.

Jonathan Kennedy teaches politics and global health at Queen Mary University of London and is the author of Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.