You always knew schools call mom more. Now there’s hard data. You always knew moms get interrupted more at work. Now there’s hard data.
Three economists emailed over 80,000 US school principals, posing as a two-parent household and asking the school to call one parent back. Mothers were called 40% more often than fathers. And that’s the floor, not the ceiling — the researchers are explicit that the real-world imbalance is almost certainly wider! Maybe in your family mom gets 100% of the calls?
Economists surveyed over 350 parents about unexpected interruptions at work — a call from the school about a sick kid, a text to schedule a dentist appointment, an alert from camp about registration. Moms were 4x more likely than dads to say those interruptions pushed them to become a stay-at-home parent for a stretch of time — 44% versus 10%. Mothers were also far more likely to say the interruptions made it hard to focus at work — and steered them toward lower-paying jobs with less room to advance. This isn’t ok!!!
How to fix this (option 1)
The researchers didn’t just measure the problem — they tested what changes it. One thing worked better than anything else:
Dad should email the school from his own email address and tell the office he’s the more available parent.
Dad should email the school (or doctor, or day camp) from his own email address and tell the office he’s the more available parent.
- It works, and the effect is large. When dad sent the email himself and mentioned he was available, he got 88% of the calls — a near-reversal of the usual pattern. Amazing!!!
- Having dad be the one that writes the email provides most of the benefit. Dad still got 80% of calls when he sent the email and said nothing about availability at all.
- It won’t fix everything. Even when dad emails the school, 12% of calls still went to mom, but it’s a start!!!
How to fix this (option 2)
Use a virtual phone number from Care Number. You give this number to the school as mom's primary contact number. When the school calls that number, either mom’s phone or dad’s phone rings — based on the schedule you’ve set.
With this, the school doesn’t have to remember the preferences you’ve told them. And it’s impossible for them to slip back into old habits. It just works and you’re in control.
It works for texting, too. And it’ll completely transform the mental load carried during the workday.
- Your family gets one shared number. That’s the number the school, the daycare, and the doctor’s office have in their system.
- Calls and texts route to whichever parent is on duty that day or week, on a repeating schedule you set.
- Because it’s built into the number itself, the split holds at 50-50 — or whatever ratio your family wants.
- One subscription covers both parents and it’s free for 30 days so you can try it for a few weeks and feel the difference it makes.
Coming to Android
Not on iPhone? Join the waitlist.
Care Number is on iOS today. An Android version is in the works — leave your email and we’ll tell you the moment it’s ready.
About the study
In the summer of 2022, the researchers emailed 80,071 US school principals a general inquiry from a fictitious two-parent household, giving phone numbers for both parents and asking the school to call one of them. They randomly varied which parent sent the email and what the email said about each parent’s availability. About 20% of principals responded. The findings above are drawn from the 11,713 decision-makers who called at least one parent.
The authors describe their measured gap as a lower bound on real-world inequality: their design removes any pre-existing relationship between the school and either parent, and their inquiry was a gender-neutral one. Their survey evidence suggests the skew would be larger for a call about picking up a sick child.
The paper was pre-registered with the AEA registry (AEARCTR-0007610) and published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Vol. 140, Issue 4, beginning at p. 2805. Care Number is not affiliated with the authors or their institutions, and the researchers have not endorsed this app.
Let’s share the care.
Stop being the default by default. Set the schedule and let the right parent’s phone ring.
