2025 was the year of the dad

They are everywhere. On the TV in John Lewis ads. Debated in Parliament. Even going on strike. Dads, it is argued, have had a bad deal. From Peppa Pig’s Daddy to Homer Simpson, fathers and men are routinely portrayed as simpletons who need as much looking after as the children they have fathered.

Yet this year, dads have been fighting back. Even the first male supermodel, David Gandy, argued that fathers have had a rough deal in how they have been portrayed in the media and film.

There is also a more sober case to be made about fathers. First, too many children are growing up in fatherless households. There are 3.2 million single-parent households in the UK, and 86 per cent are headed by women, meaning 2.7 million children do not have a father figure living at home.

Of course, in many of these households, children have some contact with Dad, but family breakdown costs the state around £51 billion each year.

The cost is not just financial. Children from a father-absent home are more likely to experience attachment-related problems than those from a two-parent household. The after effects last a lifetime. Many such children end up with difficulties in the development of friendships and forming healthy romantic relationships.

Families need dads. Keeping dads engaged with the children they have fathered should be a social and economic priority.

We must make it easier for parents when children are born. The UK’s statutory paternity leave provisions are positively Scrooge-like when compared to other countries. As the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys (CPRMB) argued earlier this year, the Nordic model is the way forward.

A report from the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee argued for six weeks' paternity pay at 80 per cent of full pay. Those wily Scandinavians have found that offering generous "daddy quotas" of parental leave promotes gender equality in caregiving, support for child development, and enhanced long-term economic outcomes.

Shared parental responsibilities enable more mothers to work, reduce gender pay gaps, and lessen the financial burden on families. Fathers who take leave are more likely to remain actively involved in childcare, which correlates with stronger child outcomes and reduced demand on public childcare services.

Companies benefit from a more stable workforce and higher employee satisfaction, while society at large gains through improved mental health, increased tax revenue from working mothers, and more equitable household dynamics.

So dads have been one of 2025's cause celebres, and rightly so. Too often ridiculed, given miserly leave when their children are born and then too many are estranged from their own children just when those children need them most.

Let’s hope 2026 brings movement in improving the lot of fathers. After all, doing so will benefit millions of children and their mothers, too. Time for a Dads’ strategy anyone?

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Nick Isles is Director of the Centre for Policy Research on Men and Boys, a research organisation and charity dedicated to understanding and addressing issues that uniquely affect men and boys in the UK.

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