Executive summary

In recent decades, the increasing employment rates of mothers combined with other changes in Australian society have had a major impact upon many aspects of family life. Despite widespread policy interest and community debate about the impact of this trend, a lack of nationally representative surveys that have a large sample of families with young children means that relatively little is known about how families with young children combine caring for children with participation in paid employment.

Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) is a new study that provides information on over 10,000 children. In the first wave, there are approximately 5,000 infants and 5,000 4 to 5 year-old children and their families. With its detailed information on labour force status, job characteristics and measures of wellbeing of the children and parents, LSAC provides an opportunity to examine the different patterns of parental employment and the characteristics of jobs in which parents with young children are employed.

Four themes are addressed in the report.

The labour force status and job characteristics of parents with young children.
Patterns of use of child care and how they vary according to family labour supply.
The impact of parental employment on co-parenting and time spent with children.
The relationship between family labour supply and the wellbeing of parents.

Parental labour force status

Analysis of LSAC reveals that having young children has a much greater effect on the employment patterns of mothers than fathers. This is consistent with the findings of other studies. Mothers with young children are less likely to be employed, more likely to work shorter hours and are employed in quite different types of jobs compared to fathers. There are substantial differences in patterns of employment between single and couple mothers and according to the age of the youngest child.

The overall employment rate for mothers with an infant was 38.1 per cent. Among mothers with an infant, the employment rate increased from 24.7 per cent for those with a 3 to 5 month old, to 33.2 per cent for those with a 6 to 8 month old, 41.2 per cent for those with a 9 to 11 month old and 49.6 per cent for those with a child aged 12 to 19 months.
The employment rate for mothers with a youngest child aged 4–5 years was 60.3 per cent.
The employment rate for fathers was 92 per cent.
Single mothers had a much lower employment rate than couple mothers.
Employment rates for both single and couple mothers increased rapidly with the age of the youngest child, whereas the employment rates of fathers were unaffected by the age of the youngest child.
Mothers who were in employment while they were pregnant had a much higher rate of return to work than those who were not employed while they were pregnant.
The average working hours of employed mothers was 20 hours per week for those with an infant and 25 hours for those with a 4–5 year-old child, much lower than the average of 46 hours for fathers. A substantial number of the fathers worked 55 or more hours per week: 21.9 per cent of those with an infant and 24.9 per cent of those with a youngest child aged 4–5 years.
Nearly two-thirds of employed mothers did not want to change the number of hours they were working. However, among full-time employed mothers, more than half preferred to work fewer hours, while those working less than 16 hours were the most likely to prefer more hours (21.7 per cent of those with an infant and 28.3 per cent of those with a youngest child aged 4–5 years).
There was little difference between mothers and fathers in the extent to which they reported having access to family-friendly work arrangements, although there were differences betweens mothers and fathers in the types of work arrangements available. Fathers were more likely to have access to paid leave than mothers while mothers were more likely to have access to flexible hours.
Couple mothers were more likely than single mothers to have access to paid maternity/parental leave (41.0 and 25.9 per cent respectively) and more likely to have access to paid personal/family leave (51.8 and 35.4 per cent respectively). Couple mothers were also more likely to report being able to change start and finish times without seeking approval (56.9 per cent) than single mothers (47.1 per cent).

Patterns of child care use

LSAC provides detailed information on the use of child care (and early education). This information, combined with the comprehensive employment data, allows for a detailed analysis of the relationship between the use of child care and parental employment.

Families with an infant in which the parents were both in paid employment (or for single-parent families, the resident parent was employed) had higher rates of use of non-parental care than in families with at least one parent not in paid employment.
In couple-parent families in which both parents were employed, 65.4 per cent used some form of non-parental care. For couple-parent families in which neither parent was employed or in which only one parent was employed, 13.3 and 16.7 per cent respectively used some form of non-parental care.
Around 80.9 per cent of employed single parents with an infant used some form of non-parental care compared to 24.7 per cent of not-employed single parents using non-parental care.
Rates of use of non-parental care were higher for single parents than couple-parent families with an infant irrespective of parents' employment.
A substantial number of single-parent and couple-parent families were able to combine paid employment without the use of non-parental care. For example, 19.1 per cent of employed single mothers did not use any form of non-parental care and 34.6 per cent of couple-parent families in which both parents were employed did not use any form of regular non-parental care. An important factor in allowing families to balance work and family while using parental care only was one parent (usually the mother) working short part-time hours.
For the 4–5 year-old cohort, almost all of the children were in some non-parental care or early education arrangement. At this age, many children have such arrangements for reasons other than parental employment.
Considerable differences were observed in the care arrangements of employed couple-parent families compared to employed single families. Single parents were less likely to rely only on parental care, and more likely to make use of formal care for infants. For both cohorts, single parents were more likely to have multiple care arrangements.

Parents' time with children

A valuable feature of LSAC is that detailed information is collected on how and with whom children spend their time. Analysis of this information clearly demonstrates the demands that combining paid work and the care of young children places on parents, particularly mothers.

The time demands are greatest when children are in their first year of life, and fall disproportionately upon mothers.
Mothers' hours of employment reduced their time with children but not in proportion to the extra time demands of their jobs.
In contrast, fathers' time with their children was only increased under the unusual circumstance of less than full-time employment and not much affected by the difference between standard full-time hours and very long hours of work.
Fathers' time with children did increase in response to their partners' hours of employment, partially offsetting reductions in mothers' time for infants and more adequately offsetting losses of maternal availability for 4–5 year olds.
While there seems to be some recognition of how partners try to compensate for each other's work demands, mothers were still more likely to indicate they did 'more than their fair share', although fathers felt they were doing their 'fair share' of the work involving children.

As successive waves of this longitudinal study accumulate, there will be opportunities to study the effects of how parents spend time with children during their early years and how this affects children's outcomes and their resilience in the face of adverse circumstances.

Employment and financial wellbeing

Very few of the families assessed themselves as getting along 'poorly' or 'very poorly' financially. At the other extreme, few families said that they were prosperous. Single-mother families were more likely than couple-parent families to say that they were 'just getting along' financially and couple-parent families were more likely to say that they were 'very comfortable' or 'reasonably comfortable' financially.

As expected, having a parent or parents in paid employment was associated with an increased equivalised family income.
Single-mother families had much higher rates of having experienced financial hardship and having experienced multiple hardships than couple-parent families.
For both single-mother and couple-parent families, jobless families reported having experienced a higher number of hardships than families in which there was parental employment.
Much of the difference in equivalised family income between single-mother and couple-parent families was explained by the higher rates of joblessness among single-mother than couple-parent families.
For couple-parent families, although having both parents employed resulted in a lower number of hardships being reported, the difference compared to couple-parent families in which only one parent was employed was relatively small.

Employment and parental wellbeing

LSAC contains a number of questions about the positive and negative effects of work on family life (termed work–family 'gains' and 'strains'). These questions provide the most direct measure of the effect of employment on parental wellbeing available in the LSAC survey. As well as the effects of paid employment on family life, this report also examines parental wellbeing in terms of parents' health, psychological wellbeing, marital relationship (for couples), and how time pressured parents felt.

Employed mothers and fathers varied very little on the work–family gains measure, although there were more differences between mothers and fathers on the work–family strains measure, with fathers reporting greater levels of work–family strain.
For employed mothers, the positive effects of work on family life were greatest for those working 16 to 24 hours per week, and the negative effects of work on family life were lowest for those working less than 16 hours per week.
For employed fathers, work–family gains declined as hours worked increased, and work–family strains increased the more hours fathers worked.
Full-time employed mothers reported having poorer health, higher levels of psychological distress, and a poorer quality relationship with their partner (if a couple) and more time pressure. In contrast, part-time hours were associated with greater wellbeing.
With the exception of time pressure and work–family strains, full-time employed fathers generally reported higher levels of wellbeing than part-time employed fathers, although fathers working very long hours (55 or more hours per week) did report lower levels of wellbeing.
Overemployment (working more hours than preferred), and underemployment (not being able to work as much as preferred) were also associated with poorer wellbeing for both mothers and fathers.
There is some evidence that the working hours of one parent were associated with the wellbeing of the other. Mothers' wellbeing was generally lower when fathers worked long hours. However, associations between mothers' work hours and fathers' wellbeing were more mixed.
Wellbeing varied with the type of job, and the work conditions that parents encountered.
Mothers and fathers who were permanently employed showed better wellbeing on most indicators compared to casual and self-employed parents.
The self-employed reported having lower levels of work–family strain than those working for an employer (casual or permanent employees). However, self-employment was also associated with lower levels of physical and psychological health, poorer-quality relationships, more time pressure and fewer positive effects of work on family. While this could be interpreted as meaning that self-employment places pressures on mothers' health and wellbeing, it could also indicate that mothers with poorer health or wellbeing were more likely to take up self-employment than to work for an employer.
Job security, job autonomy (freedom to decide how work is done) and flexible work hours (ability to change work starting and finishing times without difficulty) showed independent and consistent associations with improved wellbeing on most indicators.
Working evenings/nights or weekends showed less consistent associations with employed mothers' or fathers' wellbeing, although where associations were observed, they were in the direction of poorer wellbeing.

Given the dramatic increase in maternal employment over the last three or more decades and the inevitable impacts of this on family life, it is surprising how little is known about the patterns of participation in paid employment of families with young children. Even less is known about the effects of different patterns of parental employment, particularly maternal employment, on family life and wellbeing.

The findings in this report provide new insights into the relationship between employment and wellbeing for families with young children, with a particular focus on those with an infant. Parental wellbeing and close family relationships are central for children's wellbeing, and because most children live in families where one or both parents are employed, optimising parents' wellbeing with respect to their work arrangements may also benefit children now and into the future. The findings in relation to employment patterns are generally consistent with previous research on the working arrangements of families with children.

The findings in this report are relevant to the development of a wide range of policies including the areas of workplace relations, income support, labour market policies, welfare reform and child care. The findings are also relevant to employers who need to be able to retain and attract employees, many of whom have young children.

By providing detailed information on these issues, this report begins to fill important gaps in our knowledge base. The evidence provided in this report is relevant to crucial questions such as what is the impact of changing employment patterns on family wellbeing and ultimately the wellbeing of children? Providing answers to these questions will be critical to improving policies that impact on families.

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