How Much Is a Dad Worth?

Fathers with day jobs would be paid about $34,000 while stay-at-home dads would earn about $60,000 a year, if being a dad came with a paycheck.

No longer just babysitters, modern-day dads are putting in long hours performing various jobs on the home front, according to the annual Dad Salary Survey by Salary.com.

Salary.com created salaries for 1,074 stay-at-home and working dads 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. That’s on top of working an average of 44 hours a week at their day jobs.

“It’s clear dads have become much more hands-on when it comes to parenting,” said Evilee Ebb, general manager of Salary.com. “From cooking meals to driving the kids to soccer practice, dads have been consistently taking on increased roles at home.”

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.

While it fell behind traditional “dad duties” such as maintenance worker, groundskeeper and facilities manager, 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, according to the firm. But Salary.com’s Mom Salary Survey last month, revealed 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.”