Meghan Markle and Prince Harry are proud parents to Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet, perhaps inspiring their support of a report on fatherhood today.
On Friday, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s Archewell Foundation shared Equimundo’s State of the World’s Fathers 2023 report along with a message about why the research matters. The international nonprofit, which is dedicated to engaging men and boys in gender equality, polled over 12,000 people in 17 countries on caregiving and what bars equal participation between men and women.
“The 2023 data shows that men are increasingly involved in caregiving and would like to increase their care work at home, although deeply ingrained social norms and a lack of supportive policies and power structures discourage them from doing so,” the Archewell Foundation said in a statement.
“The report recognizes care work as the bedrock of society, and calls for continued advancements towards gender equality. It also emphasizes the need for media representation that normalizes men’s caregiving roles,” it continued.
In the acknowledgments, Equimundo thanked Archewell for “generously” providing support for the research.
Prince Harry, 38, and Meghan, 41, have partnered with the nonprofit before. In November 2022, Archewell funded a resource guide on positive masculinity for Equimundo, which reached 3,673 people in 122 countries.
Gender equity is a cause close to Harry and Meghan’s hearts, and the Duchess of Sussex spoke about how her husband is a feminist while visiting Wales in January 2018.
Well-wisher Jessica Phillips was among those who came to see the newly-engaged couple at Cardiff Castle and told Meghan how she admired her outspoken views on women’s rights and feminism.
“He’s a feminist too, so there’s that,” Meghan told of Philips of her then-fiancé.
Meghan and Harry would go on to welcome son Archie, now 4, in May 2019 and daughter Lilibet, now 2, in June 2021. The Duchess of Sussex previously said that her husband’s bond with their son inspired her to write The Bench, her children’s book about the bond between fathers and sons, published a few days after Lili was born.
“The Bench started as a poem I wrote for my husband on Father’s Day, the month after Archie was born,” Meghan said in a press release from publisher Random House Children’s Books. “That poem became this story.”
The book also seemed to include a cute tribute to Lilibet! The final illustration appeared to be inspired by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s life in California, where Harry sat on a bench and fed chickens with Archie. A woman wearing a sun hat, representing Meghan, stood in a garden with a baby in a sling.
In conversation with PEOPLE about his memoir Spare, published in January, Prince Harry said he most identifies with his family roles today.
“A husband and a father — first and foremost — as well as a veteran, environmentalist and mental-health advocate. I know that I want to live my life in service of others and that I want to live by example for my kids,” Prince Harry told PEOPLE.
[Source: People]