Social Policy Research Paper 38
Young carers in Australia: understanding the advantages and disadvantages of their care giving
Bettina Cass, Ciara Smyth, Trish Hill, Megan Blaxland and Myra Hamilton
Background
The study consisted of a literature review, quantitative analysis of existing national data sets, qualitative analysis of focus groups with young carers and analysis of findings from focus groups and interviews undertaken with Australian Government policy makers and service providers in the non-government sector.
Literature review and overview of the issues
The literature strongly suggests young carers tend to be located in identifiable socioeconomic–cultural circumstances, often in low-income families, and in families of migrant and/or culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds where care giving is central to mobilisation of intergenerational resources and strengths. The Australian and United Kingdom literature also emphasises the issue of recognising and making contact with 'hidden young carers', so they are in a position to access the services and supports available to them.
Quantitative analysis derived from Census of Population and Housing 2006, ABS Survey of Disability Ageing and Carers 2003 and the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey 2005
Overall, the evidence suggests the costs of care are in terms of lower levels of completion of all years of education, lower rates of employment participation, lower levels of household economic resources and lower scores on self-reported mental health for young carers.
Qualitative analysis: focus groups with young carers
- Care is labour: the areas of young people's lives generally most affected by care giving include their schooling and for older carers their employment, and for many young carers their opportunities for friendship and social life. However, the diversity of young carers' responsibilities and the continuum of intensity of the care they provide must be recognised.
- Care is located in a normative framework of familial obligations within which young people may not identify themselves as carers. This is the context in which many young carers expressed the view that despite the evident strains of care giving they were able to identify, they nevertheless wished to continue their responsibilities so as to protect the strength and integrity of their families and contribute to the health and wellbeing of the person for whom they care.
- Caring incurs costs: participants in the young carer focus groups reported strains with respect to their efforts to combine school education and care, enter further education and training, and combine employment and caring. Caring often incurs costs to friendships and social life, and costs to emotional and mental health. Most significantly, the evidence of these focus groups is strongly suggestive of the financial strains imposed by both care giving and disability or long-term ill health within the family. This is especially important with respect to perceived access to services, and to participation in social and friendship activities that may alleviate the burden of care giving.
- There are benefits as well as costs. The young people perceive profound contributions to the wellbeing of the care receiver and the whole family; they see their caring responsibilities contributing to the wellbeing and integrity of the whole family. Young carers also perceive that they acquire valuable skills, including a sense of maturity, independence and a deep sense of achievement, which they believe should be much better recognised and more widely valued and respected.
There are a number of formal services that young carers and their families received and appreciated and that they and service providers would like to see more widely available:
- adequate financial support given the costs of ill health and disability and the constraints imposed on their parents' employment
- respite care for longer hours to benefit both the care recipient and the young carer so they can complete their education with less strain and participate in friendship and social activities.
Assistance with domestic activities, especially with transport, was often emphasised. To help relieve the strain of balancing education and care, and employment and care, focus group participants spoke of the need for schools, TAFE colleges, universities and workplaces to institute much more flexible arrangements to fully and appropriately accommodate their care giving responsibilities.
Qualitative analysis: focus groups with policy makers and service providers
Analysis of the interviews and focus groups with policy makers, service providers and carer advocacy organisations revealed three key themes: the importance of recognising young carers and identifying hidden young carers; the centrality of education as a site for identifying and supporting young carers; and the need for expanded provision of age-appropriate and culturally-sensitive support services, and appropriate forms of financial support.
Conclusions
The research identified the following issues for policy development:
- raising awareness of young carers in a range of institutional settings, including schools, the health care system, and mainstream family and young people's services
- recognising the centrality of education as a site for identifying and supporting young carers through whole-of-school commitments
- taking a whole-of-family approach to service development and provision that recognises the close connections between support for young carers and support for the family members for whom they provide care
- providing appropriate and timely information about available services and supports to young carers and their families
- recognising the importance of age-appropriate and culturally-appropriate services and supports
- addressing unmet support needs for domestic help, respite, transport assistance and counselling
- providing appropriate and adequate financial assistance to young carers and their families
- providing help with entry into post-school training and further education
- providing help with seeking and entering employment
- recognising the specific support needs of young carers whose circumstances and concerns may not be appropriately addressed, including young people of Indigenous background, culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds and those in rural and remote areas.
[ top ]
Social Policy Research Paper No 40
Child care and early education in Australia
Linda J Harrison, Judy A Ungerer, Grant J Smith, Stephen R Zubrick and Sarah Wise with Frances Press, Manjula Waniganayake and The LSAC Research Consortium
Summary
The report addresses a number of questions relating to child care and early education in Australia and contains findings on these topics:
- child care and early education attendance patterns for infants and 4 to 5 year-old children
- parents' reasons for using care and satisfaction with their infant or child's care/education
- family, child and community factors related to current attendance at child care and early education services
- indicators of quality in formal and informal care/education programs attended by the LSAC infant or child
- developmental outcomes, such as health, social and cognitive development, for infants and children in relation to care/education attendance patterns, quality indicators, and other influencing family, child and community factors.
Key findings
Parents' use of infant child care
- Just over one-third (34.9 per cent) of the LSAC parents were using regular child care for their infants; however, the proportion varied by infant age. It was lowest (18.0 per cent) for children 6 months and younger and highest at 48.9 per cent for children older than 12 months.
- The majority of the parents using child care (62.1 per cent) accessed informal care provided by relatives, usually grandparents, or non-relatives; 37.9 per cent used formal, government-regulated long day care or family day care services; and 10.0 per cent used a combination of formal and informal care.
- There were notable differences in the use of formal and informal care by LSAC families. Long day care centres were more likely to be used by mothers who had a university education, were employed full-time rather than part-time and whose family income was higher. Relative care was less commonly used by older mothers (over 35 years) and more common when there was only one child in the family. Mothers using long day care centres tended to report lower levels of social support, parenting self-efficacy and positive parenting behaviour than mothers using family day care or informal home-based care.
- Weekly hours of child care in formal care settings (average of 20 to 21 hours a week) were longer than for informal (average of 14 hours a week). The longest hours in care were experienced by infants attending a combination of formal and informal arrangements (average of 24 hours a week).
- Parents typically used child care to enable them to meet their employment, study, family or personal responsibilities.
Infant health
- Child care was an important predictor of parents' report of their infants' low physical health, particularly for recurrent problems with gastrointestinal, ear and other infections. Infants attending long day care centres were almost twice as likely as children not receiving care to have problems with infections. Home-based child care settings provided by family day care or informal carers were not associated with a higher incidence of infection.
- In comparison to child care factors, family demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial predictors showed relatively few significant associations with infant health outcomes.
- When analyses were restricted to infants in regular non-parental child care, poorer health outcomes were highest in the group of infants who attended long day care centres for 21 or more hours per week and lowest in the groups who received one to eight or nine to 20 hours per week of care with relatives.
Early education and care services attended by 4 to 5 year-old children
- Almost all 4 to 5 year olds (96.3 per cent) were attending some type of child care or early education service each week, with the vast majority (95.1 per cent) receiving a formal centre or school-based early childhood program.
- Children who did not attend formal early childhood programs were more likely to be younger or growing up in families who were more disadvantaged; that is, mothers were less well educated, not employed, and reported higher psychological distress and poorer parenting; families had a lower income, more financial stress and more children in the household; families were lone parent, Indigenous, non–English speaking, or from a more economically-disadvantaged area.
Child social development
- Pro-social and problem behaviour outcomes were rated by parents and teachers. Child outcomes were strongly associated with child and family demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial factors, but only weakly linked to early education/child care factors. Teacher ratings of social development were lower for children who attended more child care settings each week.
Child cognitive achievement
- Cognitive achievement was indexed by tests of receptive vocabulary and early literacy and numeracy skills. Child and family demographic, socioeconomic and psychosocial factors were identified in regression analyses as the major predictors of child language outcomes, but early education and child care effects were also noted.
- Children who did not attend a formal early childhood program had lower scores for receptive vocabulary than children in pre-Year 1 and preschool programs (whether this was in a single setting or with other additional care), and comparable scores to children in long day care. Children who attended long day care plus other additional care had the lowest scores. The relationship between child care factors and children's receptive vocabulary appeared to be a function of the amount of time in care rather than type of early childhood setting, as shown by a significant drop in test scores as weekly hours of care/education approached 30 or more hours a week.
Enquiries:
Email: publications.research@fahcsia.gov.au
web: FaHCSIA website