Work and Family: How Does the (Gender) Balance Change as Children Grow?

Abstract

This article investigates how work-family balance and the gender division of labour differ according to whether children are in early childhood, middle childhood or the early teen years. It uses measures of both behaviour and attitudes, drawing on two nationally representative Australian data sets, the Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey and the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia. Women have more responsibility for care than men, but with older children there is greater gender equity in the division of labour, a less pressing domestic burden and less maternal time stress. This occurs because women recalibrate their commitments to work and home, not because domestic labour is redistributed between mothers and fathers. Further, it does not hold if women replace unpaid with paid labour; mothers who work full time have high total workloads and high stress levels regardless of the age of children. Fathers are more satisfied with their work-family balance the more they participate in childcare and the more they feel supported by their workplace to access family-friendly work policies.

Demographic Predictors of Work-Family Conflict for Men and Women: The Case of Nigeria

“…Although it may conflict with social and professional activities of females, wives are expected to take on responsibilities about family matters. On the other hand, limited participation in family matters are expected from husbands (Foley, Huang-yue, & Lui, 2005;Craig & Sawrikar, 2009). Males and females are supposed to perform different duties based on gender differences, which is a culture oriented case.…”

Tax, Social Policy and Gender: Rethinking equality and efficiency

“…In many developed countries, including Australia, and despite the observed increase in women's workforce participation, fathers spend more time in paid work and less time in child care than mothers. Many mothers choose to reduce their hours at work, seek to access flexible working arrangements including self-employment, or work in lower status jobs or industries (Kaufman and Uhlenberg 2000;Sayer 2005;Craig and Sawrikar 2009). In Australia, both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies show that mothers choose to work part time in order to balance work and child care, an option less often taken by fathers (Charlesworth et al 2011;Cooklin et al 2016).…”

“…There is a growing body of evidence on the importance of parental time investments in children's early years (Furedi 2001;Nadesan 2002;Quirke 2006;Wall 2010). The amount of time spent with children is particularly large when children are young and tends to decrease when they grow (Craig and Sawrikar 2009). …”

Part-time or Full-time Employment: Choices and Constraints

“…In developed countries, work-life balance has long been at the forefront of policy discourse (Abrahamsen et al, 2012;Craig & Sawrikar, 2009;Gregory & Milner, 2009). A key question in the work-life debate concerns the extent to which patterns reflect valueoriented choices or are a consequence of social and structural constraints.…”