Annual Report 2006–2007
Child care and employment
This section is an edited extract from FaHCSIA's Social Policy Research Paper 30, Mothers and Fathers with Young Children: Paid Employment, Caring and Wellbeing, by Jennifer Baxter, Matthew Gray, Michael Alexander, Lyndall Strazdins and Michael Bittman, July 2007.
There is considerable variation in the types of child care used by Australian families. Furthermore, the options and decisions around combining paid employment and how children are looked after are quite different for children of different ages. Child care for young children ranges from formal government-regulated centre and home-based child care settings to various informal unregulated arrangements that include, for example, care by grandparents, friends or nannies. This article focuses on child care for infants in Wave 1.
Just over one-third of infants had at least one regular child care arrangement. There were substantial differences in the use of child care according to family type and employment status (see Table 9). A higher proportion of employed single parents used some form of child care (80.9 per cent) than not-employed single parents (24.7 per cent). A high proportion of couple-parent families in which both parents were employed used some form of child care (65.4 per cent), although around one-third of these dual-employed families did not. In couple-parent families where only one parent was employed (usually the father), only 16.7 per cent had regular care arrangements for the infant. This is similar to the rate for couple-parent families in which neither parent was employed (13.3 per cent).
Employed single-parent families had higher rates of use of child care than couple-parent families in which both parents were employed (see Table 9). This is not surprising, given that couple parents may be more easily able to coordinate their time and work arrangements so that non-parental care is not required.
Families with infants were more likely to use informal care only (20.5 per cent) than formal care only (10.8 per cent) (see Table 9). Employed single parents were more likely than dual-employed parents to use a mix of formal and informal care.
Table 9 - Child care use by family type and parental work status, infant cohort
| Single | Couple | Total | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Not employed | Employed | Neither employed | One employed | Both employed | ||
| % | % | % | % | % | % | |
| Parental care only | 75.3 |
19.1 |
86.7 |
83.3 |
34.6 |
64.8 |
| Formal care only | 6.2 |
22.7 |
4.6 |
4.4 |
21.5 |
10.8 |
| Informal care only | 16.5 |
37.7 |
8.7 |
11.4 |
35.6 |
20.5 |
| Both formal and informal | 2.0 |
20.5 |
0.0 |
0.9 |
8.4 |
3.9 |
| Total | 100.0 (n = 385) |
100.0 (n = 91) |
100.0 (n = 238) |
100.0 (n = 2,555) |
100.0 (n = 1,834) |
100.0 (n = 5,103) |
Note: Numbers have been rounded and may not add to the total.
Source: Growing Up in Australia, Wave 1
The reason for the use of child care was clearly related to parental employment, with the majority of employed single parents and dual-employed couples citing parental work or study commitments as the main reason for using child care (92.9 per cent and 91.2 per cent respectively). This was true regardless of whether formal or informal care was the main type of care used.
Child care in working families
A significant proportion of working families (defined as employed single-parent families, and couple-parent families where both parents were employed) were able to manage paid work responsibilities without using non-parental care (19.1 per cent of employed single parents and 34.6 per cent of employed couple-parent families).
An important question is: what factors are related to the probability of working families using non-parental care for their infants and, for those families who are using non-parental care, what factors1 are associated with using formal care compared to informal care?
The data was explored using multivariate techniques, which drew out the associations between family characteristics, primary carer's job characteristics, and care arrangements. Only those relationships found to be statistically significant are included in the following discussions.
The following relationships were found:
- Younger infants aged 3 to 5 months were more likely to be solely in parental care (54.3 per cent), than infants aged 12 months or more ( 21.8 per cent).
- Children from larger families were more likely to be in parental care only (28.9 per cent of one-child families compared to 47.2 per cent of infants in families of three or more children).
- A higher total parental income was positively related to the use of non-parental child care. The percentage having only parental care was 43.7 per cent for families with gross income of less than $1,000 per week, 32.4 per cent where the income was between $1,000 and $1,499 and 26.5 per cent where the income was $1,500 or more.
- When the primary carer was more highly educated, there was also a greater use of non-parental child care. For example, 42.9 per cent of those with incomplete secondary schooling compared to 28.7 per cent of those with a bachelor degree or higher had parental care only.
Specific job characteristics of the primary carer also had an association with having only parental care:
- Parents working less than 16 hours per week were more likely to only have parental care for the study child (49.9 per cent), as were self-employed parents (56.4 per cent).
- Casual employees were more likely than permanent/ongoing employees to have only parental care (37.5 per cent compared to 19.8 per cent).
- Parents who worked evenings/nights and parents who worked weekends were more likely to have only parental care (40.8 per cent and 41.2 per cent respectively) compared to those who did not.
Formal versus informal care
Differences in the use of formal care versus informal care were also identified for working families. Key relationships found include:
- The age of the study child had the greatest effect, with older infants more likely to be in formal care (12.0 per cent of those aged 3 to 5 months were in formal care only and 29.2 per cent in informal care only, compared to 27.4 per cent of those aged 12 months or more in formal care only and 37.0 per cent in informal care only).
- Two-child families were somewhat more likely to be in formal care than informal care than one-child families (21.4 per cent of infants in one-child families were in formal care only and 39.7 per cent in informal care only, while 24.3 per cent of infants in two-child families were in formal care only and 33.8 per cent in informal care only).
- When the primary carer was self-employed, the child was more likely to be in informal care only (29.7 per cent) than in formal care only (8.8 per cent), relative to those with a primary carer who was a permanent/ongoing employee (31.0 per cent formal care only, 37.4 per cent informal care only).
- This was also the case if the primary carer worked less than 16 hours per week (34.1 per cent were in informal care only and 11.7 per cent in formal care only), relative to working 35 hours or more (38.1 per cent informal care only, 30.5 per cent formal care only). The hours the non-primary carer worked did not significantly differentiate between those who used formal care and those who used informal care, and neither did parental income.
Parental-only care
A possible mechanism for couple working families to only have parental care is for them to share the care of children. In other words, parents schedule their hours so that one parent is available to care for the child while the other is working.
Growing Up in Australia can provide some insight into this through a question that asks the primary carer whether there are any regular times during the week when their partner takes care of the child while they are not there (for example, to go to work or do the shopping). The primary carer is then asked for how many hours the child is looked after by the partner only.
Table 10 shows that the partner spent some time caring for the child in 52.4 per cent of couple working families who used no formal or informal care. Looking from the other perspective, the primary carer was the sole carer of the child in 47.6 per cent of these dual-employed, parental-care-only families. In these families, it seems that the primary carer was working while also being responsible for their children.
Partners of self-employed primary carers were the least likely to provide care, and when they did, they provided care for fewer hours than the mean working hours of self-employed primary carers. That is, it appears that self-employed primary carers were the most likely to be working while simultaneously caring for children. For permanent/ongoing and casual employees, when their partners did provide care, they did so for an amount of hours that was similar to the mean hours worked by permanent/ongoing or casual employees, suggesting a dovetailing of hours in these families.
Table 10 - Partner involvement in care by job type of primary carer, dual-employed couples who use no child care, infant cohort
| Self-employed | Permanent/ongoing employee | Casual employee | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partner cares for the child (%) | 42.1 |
62.0 |
61.8 |
52.4 |
| Weekly number of hours of care by partner (hrs) | 6.9 |
18.1 |
10.5 |
11.8 |
| Mean weekly hours worked by primary carer | ||||
| Partner does not care for child | 12.7 |
19.6 |
8.7 |
13.6 |
| Partner does care for child | 13.3 |
21.5 |
11.0 |
15.6 |
| Total | 13.0 (n = 304) |
20.8 (n = 191) |
10.1 (n = 143) |
14.7 (n = 638) |
Source: Growing Up in Australia, Wave 1
1. In considering these associations, it should be kept in mind that other factors, not considered here because relevant information was not collected in Wave 1 of Growing Up in Australia, are also likely to be important. These include affordability or availability of different care options, and views on what is appropriate care for children at different ages.