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Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing, as well as reducing and redistributing women’s care and domestic work (known as the ‘Three Rs’), is an established framework for addressing women’s inequitable unpaid care work. However, the care work of breastfeeding presents a dilemma, and is even a divisive issue, for advocates of women’s empowerment, because reducing breastfeeding and replacing it with commercial milk formula risks harming women’s and children’s health. It is therefore necessary for the interaction between women’s reproductive biology and infant care role to be recognized in order to support women’s human rights and enable governments to implement economic, employment and other policies to empower women. In this paper, we argue that breastfeeding–like childbirth–is reproductive work that should not be reduced and cannot sensibly be directly redistributed to fathers or others. Rather, we contend that the Three Rs agenda should be reconceptualized to isolate breastfeeding as ‘sexed’ care work that should be supported rather than reduced with action taken to avoid undermining breastfeeding. This means that initiatives toward gender equality should be assessed against their impact on women’s ability to breastfeed. With this reconceptualization, adjustments are also needed to key global economic institutions and national statistical systems to appropriately recognize the value of this work. Additional structural supports such as maternity protection and childcare are needed to ensure that childbearing and breastfeeding do not disadvantage women amidst efforts to reduce gender p

Women’s1 lifelong health and nutrition status is intricately related to their reproductive history, including the number and spacing of their pregnancies and births, and for how long and how intensively they breastfeed their children. In turn, women’s reproductive biology is closely linked to their social roles and situation, including regarding economic disadvantage and disproportionate unpaid work. Recognizing, as well as reducing and redistributing women’s care and domestic work (known as the ‘Three Rs’), is an established framework for addressing women’s inequitable unpaid care work. However, the care work of breastfeeding presents a dilemma, and is even a divisive issue, for advocates of women’s empowerment, because reducing breastfeeding and replacing it with commercial milk formula risks harming women’s and children’s health. It is therefore necessary for the interaction between women’s reproductive biology and infant care role to be recognized in order to support women’s human rights and enable governments to implement economic, employment and other policies to empower women. In this paper, we argue that breastfeeding–like childbirth–is reproductive work that should not be reduced and cannot sensibly be directly redistributed to fathers or others. Rather, we contend that the Three Rs agenda should be reconceptualized to isolate breastfeeding as ‘sexed’ care work that should be supported rather than reduced with action taken to avoid undermining breastfeeding. This means that initiatives toward gender equality should be assessed against their impact on women’s ability to breastfeed. With this reconceptualization, adjustments are also needed to key global economic institutions and national statistical systems to appropriately recognize the value of this work. Additional structural supports such as maternity protection and childcare are needed to ensure that childbearing and breastfeeding do not disadvantage women amidst efforts to reduce gender p

This study examines the amount and division of household labour, defined as housework and childcare, in Malaysia through the lens of ethnicity. Despite much research on the influence of racial-ethnic identity on the gendered division of household labour, research into the relationship in Malaysia is scarce. Likewise, although religion is closely related to ethnic identity in Malaysia, the extent to which a person’s religiosity is related to the division of household labour is not yet known. This thesis addresses the current gap in the research using a mixed methods approach of a quantitative online survey (N=859) and qualitative interviews (N=30).This thesis explores how and why couples spend household time and divide household labour in Malaysia with two lines of inquiry. The first examines whether ethnicity and religiosity influence the amount and division of household labour, using quantitative analysis. The findings indicate that ethnic identity is important in shaping women’s weekly housework hours, with Malay women spending more time in housework than Chinese women. Also, ethnic identity is important in shaping mothers’ and fathers’ weekly childcare hours, with Chinese mothers and fathers spending more time in childcare than Malays. Chinese couples also share childcare slightly more equally than Malay couples, but with no significant differences in the division of housework. Religiosity is more associated with the amount and division of household labour for both housework and childcare for Malays than for Chinese.The second line of inquiry examines the gendered life experiences and the negotiation process between couples over the division of household labour, using qualitative analysis. The interview findings are consistent with the quantitative findings. Malay and Chinese couples differ in their experiences of the division of household labour: Malay couples’ experiences are more dominated by the religion of Islam and Malay cultural influences, whereas Chinese

We analyze data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 1¿6, to investigate whether the housework and childcare contributions of coupled Australian men with one child affect the likelihood that their wives will have a second child. We find no evidence that the way housework or childcare is shared has an effect, nor that the amount of men¿s contribution to housework or childcare has an effect. In addition, the effect of men¿s housework and childcare time on fertility does not appear to be mediated through its effect on their wives¿ housework and childcare.

We analyze data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 1¿6, to investigate whether the housework and childcare contributions of coupled Australian men with one child affect the likelihood that their wives will have a second child. We find no evidence that the way housework or childcare is shared has an effect, nor that the amount of men¿s contribution to housework or childcare has an effect. In addition, the effect of men¿s housework and childcare time on fertility does not appear to be mediated through its effect on their wives¿ housework and childcare.

We analyze data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 1¿6, to investigate whether the housework and childcare contributions of coupled Australian men with one child affect the likelihood that their wives will have a second child. We find no evidence that the way housework or childcare is shared has an effect, nor that the amount of men¿s contribution to housework or childcare has an effect. In addition, the effect of men¿s housework and childcare time on fertility does not appear to be mediated through its effect on their wives¿ housework and childcare.

We analyze data from the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) survey waves 1¿6, to investigate whether the housework and childcare contributions of coupled Australian men with one child affect the likelihood that their wives will have a second child. We find no evidence that the way housework or childcare is shared has an effect, nor that the amount of men¿s contribution to housework or childcare has an effect. In addition, the effect of men¿s housework and childcare time on fertility does not appear to be mediated through its effect on their wives¿ housework and childcare.

Measures of childcare drawn from time-diary data are commonly based on the specific childcare activities a parent engages in throughout the day. This emphasis on activities has been criticised as it ignores the large quantity of time parents spend supervising their children. In order to provide more accurate estimates of childcare that incorporate supervisory childcare, researchers have turned to extended measures of care based on being i) in proximity to children or ii) responsible for children. There has been debate about the extent to which these approaches each measure the same aspect of childcare. In addition, it is thought they may be sensitive to the way surveys have been designed, which can affect the extent to which they can be compared crossnationally. We argue that measures of proximity and responsibility are conceptually interchangeable, and demonstrate that they can be harmonised and compared cross-nationally. Finally, we suggest ways in which these extended measures of childcare can be made increasingly comparable cross-nationally.

Measures of childcare drawn from time-diary data are commonly based on the specific childcare activities a parent engages in throughout the day. This emphasis on activities has been criticised as it ignores the large quantity of time parents spend supervising their children. In order to provide more accurate estimates of childcare that incorporate supervisory childcare, researchers have turned to extended measures of care based on being i) in proximity to children or ii) responsible for children. There has been debate about the extent to which these approaches each measure the same aspect of childcare. In addition, it is thought they may be sensitive to the way surveys have been designed, which can affect the extent to which they can be compared crossnationally. We argue that measures of proximity and responsibility are conceptually interchangeable, and demonstrate that they can be harmonised and compared cross-nationally. Finally, we suggest ways in which these extended measures of childcare can be made increasingly comparable cross-nationally.

This paper describes major Australian Government policies which affected families in the years from 1992 to 2006. In 1996 there was a transition from a Labor to a Liberal/National Australian Government, a change which allows this review to examine the policy trends under the two different authorities. The review focuses on policy in the areas of child care, family assistance, income support, industrial relations and maternity leave. The review aims to provide background material for subsequent analysis of changes in men and women’s time use from 1992 to 2006.

Measures of childcare drawn from time-diary data are commonly based on the specific childcare activities a parent engages in throughout the day. This emphasis on activities has been criticised as it ignores the large quantity of time parents spend supervising their children. In order to provide more accurate estimates of childcare that incorporate supervisory childcare, researchers have turned to extended measures of care based on being i) in proximity to children or ii) responsible for children. There has been debate about the extent to which these approaches each measure the same aspect of childcare. In addition, it is thought they may be sensitive to the way surveys have been designed, which can affect the extent to which they can be compared crossnationally. We argue that measures of proximity and responsibility are conceptually interchangeable, and demonstrate that they can be harmonised and compared cross-nationally. Finally, we suggest ways in which these extended measures of childcare can be made increasingly comparable cross-nationally.

Measures of childcare drawn from time-diary data are commonly based on the specific childcare activities a parent engages in throughout the day. This emphasis on activities has been criticised as it ignores the large quantity of time parents spend supervising their children. In order to provide more accurate estimates of childcare that incorporate supervisory childcare, researchers have turned to extended measures of care based on being i) in proximity to children or ii) responsible for children. There has been debate about the extent to which these approaches each measure the same aspect of childcare. In addition, it is thought they may be sensitive to the way surveys have been designed, which can affect the extent to which they can be compared crossnationally. We argue that measures of proximity and responsibility are conceptually interchangeable, and demonstrate that they can be harmonised and compared cross-nationally. Finally, we suggest ways in which these extended measures of childcare can be made increasingly comparable cross-nationally.

This report analyses the 1997 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (TUS) in order to investigate the ways in which Australians manage to balance the competing demands of work and family. It uses four measures, three relating to the ‘objective’ time pressure of the total hours worked (paid work, unpaid work and child care), and one measure of ‘subjective’ time pressure (feelings of being rushed or pressed for time). These measures are applied to six household types classified according to the arrangements each has made in relation to employment and child are: male-breadwinner family, one-and-a-half-earner family, (standard full-time) dual-career family (woman working standard full-time hours), (long hours full-time) dual-career family (woman working more than 49 hours a week), family in which the man does not work full-time, and sole mother family.The report investigates the differences between these household types, between men and women as individuals within households, and between sole mothers and married mothers. It also investigates the ways in which two key work-family policy measures – non-parental childcare and part-time work – currently affect work-family balance within Australian households.

Working parents are obliged to use non-parental childcare. However, parents who make use of non-parental childcare do not reduce their parental childcare time on an hour for hour basis. Since there are only 24 hours in the day, how do parents continue to be engaged in direct care of their own children while also committing significant time to the labour market activities? Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (over 4000 randomly selected households), to compare the time allocation of employed fathers, employed mothers and mothers who are not in the labour force, this paper shows how parents maintain their time commitments to both work and childcare. The strategies available are (1) reducing the time devoted to other activities (principally sleep, leisure, bathing, dressing, grooming, eating) (2) rescheduling activities (from weekends to weekday or changing the time of day at which particular activities are undertaken).

Raising children takes both time and money. For almost 150 years, scholars have attempted to find convincing ways to capture the costs of raising children. However, even when these estimates include indirect costs, such as mothers’ foregone earnings, little research has been done on estimating the true time costs of raising children. This paper shows how the presence of children changes parents’ use of time. It uses data from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Time Use Survey to study how the allocation of time differs inhouseholds with varying numbers and ages of children and how households with children differ from those with no children. It also examines the intra-household division of time-resources, showing how childcare (and related unpaid work) and parental leisure are distributed between mothers and fathers. Since humans are capable of engaging in more than one activity at a time, the ABS time diaries allow people to report simultaneous activities. A high proportion of time with children is recorded as a ‘secondary’, or accompanying, activity. This papershows the effect of including secondary activity in the analysis of total parental time commitments, and gives a more accurate picture of the time cost of children than has previously been possible on the basis of analysing ‘primary’ activities alone.

This paper uses a framework of welfare state typology pioneered by Gosta Esping-Andersen and developed by Walter Korpi, and data from the Multinational Time Use World 5 Series, to compare the impact of children on adult time-use in four countries (Australia, Italy, Norway and Germany) with different approaches to economic, social and family organisation. It quantifies three measures of the time effects of parenthood. These are 1) the gap between couple parents and non-parents in total paid and unpaid work undertaken (the workload penalty of parenthood), 2) the relative time allocation to paid and unpaid work by couple parents and by non-parents (work-family balance), and 3) the relative contribution to unpaid work by couple parents and by non-parents (gender equity in domestic labour). Of the sample, ‘familialistic’ Italy has the most inequitable division of labour for childless men and women, and it is ‘liberal’ Australia in which the changes in time commitment that come with parenthood are most pronounced and most inequitable by sex.

Households provide their members with both financial support and caring services. In sole parent households, the vast majority of which are headed by women, the functions of earning money and caring for children fall to one individual. The risk that sole mothers may fail to perform either or both of these functions adequately has made these women and their children a subject of social concern and policy interest. The financial consequences of sole motherhood have been extensively studied both in Australia and cross nationally. The other area of concern, that the children of sole mothers are disadvantaged in terms of parental attention, has not been systematically investigated. To begin addressing this research gap, this paper analyses the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (over 4000 randomly selected households) to establish whether, in Australia, the time sole mothers spend with their children differs in either quality or quantity from that of mothers, and/or fathers, in couple families. The related issue of whether sole mothers suffer more time pressure or time constraint than partnered mothers is also addressed.

This paper uses the 1992 Time Use Survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics to calculate the amount of time that parenthood adds to daily time commitment, and the impact of parenthood on the daily division of household labour. Because child care is most often performed simultaneously with other tasks, this paper includes secondary activity in calculating the time cost of children. It demonstrates that across the range of variation in labour force status, the time cost of parenthood is high; however, the impact of motherhood on total time commitment and on the proportion of work that is unpaid, is greater than the impact of fatherhood.

This paper analyses the 1992 Time Use Survey by the Australian Bureau of Statistics in order to compare contextual aspects of time spent with children by mothers and by fathers. The research finds that when mothers are with children they are more likely to be in sole charge, to perform onerous or routine tasks, and to do other activities at the same time, than are fathers. The paper argues that these findings imply that the experience of child care is qualitatively different for men and women.

Most research on gender divisions of housework focuses on couple and family households. This article extends this literature to examine gender differences in domestic labour across living arrangements, with particular focus on young adults. Using time-diary data from the nationally representative Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (2006) it examines the amount and composition of domestic work performed by 20–34-year-olds (n = 889) living with parents, in a share household, alone, or in a couple, differentiating between routine and non-routine housework tasks, and between housework done for oneself only or for the household. It finds gender differences are strongest in couple households, but pertain across living arrangements, including share houses. Also, women’s domestic labour varies more by household characteristics than men’s. However, there is some evidence of non-conformity to gender stereotypes, with young men living in couple relationships contributing more time on activities for the household than young men in other households.

Young adults are now more likely to co-reside with their parents than previous generations, but domestic work patterns among this family type are largely unexplored. This study addresses this issue using Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Surveys (1992, 1997, 2006) and Poisson–Gamma regression analyses. It examines patterns in and correlates of domestic labor in two-generation households in which young people aged 15–34 co-reside with their parents (n = 1,946 households comprised of 2,806 young people and 5,129 parents). It differentiates between routine indoor tasks (cooking, cleaning, laundry), non-routine tasks (outdoor work, household management and maintenance, car care) and grocery shopping. Predictors of more time in some domestic activities by young people include being in neither employment nor education/training (NEET), being older, having a single parent and being in a non-English speaking household (young women). Young people being NEET, or female, are associated with less cooking time for mothers, but in the main when young people do perform domestic activities, they do not relieve their parents of those same activities, suggesting more time is spent by the household in total.