Biology May Keep New Fathers Close to Home

21 September 2011

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.

A few months ago, government researchers released the latest American Time Use Survey. It included the average time per day that Americans spent providing child care between two thousand six and two thousand ten.

Among adults living with children under age six, women spent one hour and six minutes a day providing physical care. This is care like bathing or feeding a child. Men spent twenty-six minutes.

Yet a new study suggests that men are biologically designed to care for their children. It confirmed that testosterone levels drop after men become fathers.

Eileen Goede and Tibor Tary hold their newborn baby Timeo, born at a Berlin hospital at 11:11 am on 1/1/11

Testosterone is the main sex hormone responsible for the changes when a boy develops into a man. Women also produce testosterone but in much lower amounts.

Earlier studies showed that fathers have lower levels of testosterone than childless men. Christopher Kuzawa at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, says there are at least two possible explanations.

CHRISTOPHER KUZAWA: “Is it that fatherhood reduces your testosterone? Or do men with low testosterone to begin with, are they more likely to become fathers? And so what we did is, we followed men through time and measured their hormones before and after they became fathers.”