Why Gen Z boys want kids whilst girls are rethinking - have we reached parental equity?

I recently asked one of my teenage classes during our ‘family life’ topic to weigh up their pros and cons of having children in the future. Although retrospectively understandable, I was initially surprised by the stark gender divide in their responses. In this class of thirty, all of the boys stated they would absolutely like to have children within the next decade, all with a huge amount of ‘pros’ listed and very few ‘cons.’ Meanwhile, the girls remained on the fence, weighing up many factors and often leaning slightly more to not having children, especially within the next decade.

As a generation, we are all reaching milestones far later than our parents or grandparents. The median age to get married has risen by eight years since the 1950s, whilst Gen Z opts to have children five to ten years later than our grandparents. This delay is of course due to both shifting norms and career and education focus; however, a huge contributing factor in this disparity is of course the rise in daily prices. Necessities such as rent, groceries, and childcare have soared, with a 500% rise in consumer prices since 1970. Perhaps Gen Z often just simply cannot afford to have children.

This, however, wouldn’t explain the gender disparity for the desire of having children. Men and women are equally affected by the rise of prices and the cost-of-living crisis; however, when it comes to young, unmarried people, it is men who want children, whilst women have questions. This observation is reinforced by Pew Research’s (2023) The ‘Want’ Gap, which evaluates that childless men are statistically more likely than childless women to say they want to be parents someday (57% of men vs. 45% of women).

This led me to a necessary question: Have we actually reached parental equity? Because even in an era of supposed progress, the concepts of 'motherhood' and 'fatherhood' remain deeply steeped in gendered stereotypes and lopsided expectations.

While I was working as a cashier alongside doing my A-levels, I remember a moment that a dad came to the checkout with his baby strapped to his stomach and a toddler following behind. I caught myself thinking, ‘oh gosh how sweet is that!’ Hundreds of mums walked through that farm shop with toddlers in tow and I didn’t have anything close to this reaction. Perhaps the sweetness I felt was actually a subconscious acknowledgement of rarity. This is absolutely not to say that involved dads aren't working hard or that their bond with their children is any less profound; it is simply a reflection of a culture that still treats male parenting as a choice to be celebrated, rather than a standard to be met.

This ‘sweetness’ we project onto men is, in many ways, a symptom of our lack of true parental equity. If we truly lived in a world where the domestic burden was shared, a father with his children wouldn't be a spectacle of cuteness; it would just be another Saturday.

Of course, one of the first points to mention in this gender disparity is the physical trauma (or miracle, depending on your perspective) the body is put through during childbirth.

For the boys in my classroom, the ‘pros’ of fatherhood often looked like a highlight reel: playing football in the park, passing on a surname, or passing on traditions. It seemed to be an additive experience to their already rich lives. In contrast, the girls focused on the physical bodily trauma and more on the day-to-day, often mundane parts of parenthood. The so-called ‘invisible labour’ which often still falls onto women in the house.

For a generation who have largely watched their own mothers ‘do it all’ at the cost of their own burnout, being ‘on the fence’ isn't an act of indecision. My birthday and Christmas cards for my mum often depicted her as a ‘superhero,’ a woman who did (and does) it all with a smile on her face. This is all absolutely true, she is a superhero, but calling her one feels like a convenient way to ignore how much she was expected to carry. As I grow up, my admiration grows more and more for my mum who was the main breadwinner, cook, cleaner, child carer, driver, family therapist, and did all the laundry. This, with four children aged under eight years old and a full-time teaching position: quite a feat.

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Cards by Celia and her siblings

Perhaps then, the reason so many young women are thinking twice before having children is a calculated response to a domestic structure that still expects women to be the primary shock-absorbers for family life. Of course, this has largely always been the case (women taking on the role of housemaid), but now women face a ‘double burden,’ lying at the meeting point of tradition and modernity.

This meeting point is where the friction lies. We live in an era where women are encouraged to be CEOs and breadwinners, yet the home hasn't caught up. It is the ‘Second Shift’ phenomenon; research by University College London found that even when women earn more than their partners, they still perform the vast majority of housework and childcare. According to Pew Research, fathers still get about three hours more leisure time per week than mothers.

It’s no wonder the girls in my classroom are hesitant. They see that fatherhood is often viewed as a rewarding addition to a man’s life, whilst motherhood is still treated as a woman’s entire infrastructure. Until a father with a buggy is just another Saturday rather than a sweet rarity, that gender gap in the classroom will likely remain.