You won't believe how much fathers are worth these days!

Masterfile

The insurance website, Insure.com, has come out with a new index that puts a monetary value on dads in North America. So how much is a father worth in a household these days? It doesn't seem like much.

According to the index, the average father’s contribution to household chores and parenting duties is worth a measly $20,248 — measured in terms of how much it would cost to pay someone else to do Dad’s chores at home. These duties include helping with homework, barbecuing, moving furniture and plumbing.

While the index doesn’t include outside income, it does show that Dad’s replacement value at home has fallen below the rate of inflation: 10 years ago, the same duties were worth $16,495 or $21,365 in today’s dollars.

Compare that to what mothers do around the house and it gets really depressing. Insure.com’s index for mothers estimates it would cost $60,192 per year to replace Mom's duties at home. The average father’s efforts are worth just 34 percent of that.

But then again, my husband does do most of the cooking and cleaning in our house. In fact, I see a lot more men taking on childcare duties among my friends than I’ve seen before.

Still, I hear so many women I know complaining that they end up doing most of the household chores and child rearing. Even when both spouses work outside the home, it usually ends up in the mother’s lap by default.

Whether or not you think you can put a dollar value on the household responsibilities of mothers and fathers, these numbers contain some hard truths. Can we balance the household chores between men and women equally?

What about you? Does this survey reflect your reality? Or do you disagree?