Father Figures

To acknowledge the positive role of fathers, Statistics New Zealand offers the following facts about fathers for Father’s Day on Sunday:

• A baby will be a Father’s Day present for an estimated 140 men this year.
• The average age of fathers of new babies is 33 years, but one in 100 babies has a father aged 50 years or over.
• Today’s newborn babies have fathers who are, on average, five years older than their own fathers were when they were born.
• Fathers with children aged under a year old manage 42 minutes less sleep than the average of 8.5 hours.
• Over a lifetime, fathers have seven fewer Father’s Days, on average, than mothers have Mother’s Days. This is because men generally start parenting later in life and women have a longer life span.
• More than a quarter (27 percent) of babies born in New Zealand last year were to fathers who were not themselves born in New Zealand. This compares with 21 percent a decade ago.
• Father’s Day coincides with the start of a build-up in hardware sales leading up to Christmas.