Salary.com's 2011 Dad Salary Survey - How Much Is Your Dad Worth?

Salary.com's Annual Father's Day Survey Reveals Dad's Parenting Paycheck

No longer relegated to the role of babysitters, modern-day dads are putting in long hours performing various jobs on the homefront.

Salary.com conducts an annual survey which determines how handsomely dads would be compensated if parenting came with a paycheck. Using a hybrid Job Valuation Tool and based on Certified Compensation Professional benchmarking principles that determine the value of jobs, salaries for 1,074 stay-at-home and working dads were created using the 10 most common "dad jobs" including: day care center teacher, CEO, psychologist, cook, groundskeeper, laundry machine operator, computer operator, facilities manager, maintenance worker and van driver.

This year's survey found stay-at-home dads work an average of 52.9 hours a week. Factoring in base pay plus overtime, these dads would earn $60,128 a year. Working fathers would be paid $33,858 a year after spending 30.6 hours a week on parenting duties. And that's on top of working an average of 44 hours a week at their day jobs.

Evilee Ebb, General Manager of Salary.com, said "It's clear dads have become much more hands-on when it comes to parenting. From cooking meals to driving the kids to soccer practice, dads have been consistently taking on increased roles at home. Here at Salary.com, we see fathers as versatile workers who perform a myriad of day-to-day jobs that would make them attractive and valuable to any employer."

The dads in this year's survey are busy looking after their kids, preparing meals, doing work around the house and ensuring the mental well-being of their children.

It fell behind traditional "dad duties" such as maintenance worker, groundskeeper and facilities manager, but stay-at-home dads are spending an average of 3.5 hours a week as a psychologist. Dads also reported spending 10.8 hours a week as a daycare teacher, 6.2 hours a week cooking and 4.2 hours running the household as CEO.

A recession, combined with a shift towards shared parenting, led to 154,000 American men becoming stay-at-home dads in 2010. But Salary.com's Mom Salary Survey last month, reveals mothers still do most of the work with stay-at-home moms spending 96.6 hours per week caring for their kids, which equates to a salary of $115,432 a year. Working mothers would make $63,472 a year after putting in 55.9 hours of mom-related work every week, which is three more hours than stay-at-home dads.

But James Rohl, a stay-at-home father of two and popular dad blogger in Oregon, said there is a likely explanation for the discrepancy.
"I believe, on average, stay-at-home dads see working moms as a valued partner and so dads only count the hours they are alone with their kids," Rohl said. "But on average, stay-at-home moms count all the time they're with the kids no matter who's there. Even if their husbands are home, the idea is moms are still working and on the job. I don't think that accurately reflects what's really happening."

Want to see what you (or your dad) should be earning? Check out our Dad Salary Wizard and find out!