School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications

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    Active Participation and Well-Being Among the Elderly in Belgium and the USA: A Cross-National Time-Use Perspective
    van Tienoven, TP ; Craig, L ; Glorieux, I ; Minnen, J (Springer Verlag, 2020-05-28)
    Active participation of the elderly is a recognized response to address the societal and individual challenges of rising life expectancy such as releasing the pressure of age-related public spending, reducing social isolation and improving well-being. How much time older people devote to active participation and whether their time allocation is associated with well-being remains under-investigated. Using time-use data from Belgium (n = 1384) and the USA (n = 2133), we investigate the time older people (65–80 years) spent on active participation and examine how this relates to their life satisfaction as an indicator of wellbeing. The countries vary in the amount of time spent on paid employment and volunteering, but not on informal help. Belgian older people spend much less time on paid employment than their American counterparts. This implies more are available to volunteer and provide informal help. Yet participation rates in these activities are higher in the USA. Multivariate analyses show that associations between active participation and life satisfaction vary between both countries and within both countries by gender and age. Overall, positive associations between paid work and volunteering and life satisfaction suggest that governments would do well to mobilize elderly into active participation, especially in Belgium. Negative associations between informal help and life satisfaction suggest governments should provide greater support for informal carers.
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    Dual-Parent Joblessness, Household Work and Its Moderating Role on Children's Joblessness as Young Adults
    Mooi-Reci, I ; Craig, L (SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2020-01-10)
    Using data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we examine whether living in jobless families where parents devote more time to household work shields children against their own joblessness in the future. We draw on a representative sample of young adults who were aged between 4 and 17 years in 2001 and lived with both parents through to 2007 (N = 1,852). A series of mixed-effect regression models suggest that dual-parent joblessness is associated with an increase in families’ overall household production...
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    Coronavirus, domestic labour and care: Gendered roles locked down
    Craig, L (SAGE Publications, 2020-07-24)
    The Covid-19 pandemic turned daily lives upside down. Lockdowns and physical distancing meant hundreds of thousands of people switched to working from home, significantly blurring the temporal and spatial boundaries between paid work, domestic labour and caring for others. This article explores gender relations, and the division of employment, domestic labour and care, drawing on early results from an online survey, Work and Care in the Time of Covid-19, carried out between 7 May and 4 June 2020.
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    Working and Caring at Home: Gender Differences in the Effects of Covid-19 on Paid and Unpaid Labor in Australia
    Craig, L ; Churchill, B (Informa UK Limited, 2020)
    The COVID-19 pandemic caused working from home to spike abruptly. This had implications for those with caring responsibilities, particularly women, who shoulder most unpaid domestic work. But what about men? This paper reports early results from a survey of Australian men and women, conducted during state-imposed lockdown in May 2020 (N=2772). Respondents were asked their average daily time in housework, household management, and care (active and supervisory), and about time pressure, spare time and satisfaction with balance of paid and unpaid labor, before and during the pandemic. Unpaid work rose significantly. Women still did most, but men’s childcare time increased more in relative terms, so average gender gaps narrowed. The relative gap in housework remained. For many, the lockdown generated lower subjective time pressure, but dissatisfaction with balance of paid and unpaid work rose markedly, and from a much higher base for women. Gender gaps in this measure remained wide.
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    Fatherhood, Motherhood and Time Pressure in Australia, Korea, and Finland
    Craig, L ; Brown, JE ; Jun, J (OXFORD UNIV PRESS, 2020-06-01)
    Using nationally representative Time Use Surveys from Australia, Korea, and Finland (n = 19,127 diaries) we examine how parenthood and the age of the youngest child are associated with the recuperative activities of leisure and sleep, the productive activities of market and nonmarket work, and with subjective time stress. Time stress differences by fatherhood are greatest for Finns and least for Koreans; time stress differences by motherhood are absent for Finns and high for Australians and Koreans. Results of the comparative analysis suggest that social policy and average national working hours produce different gendered gaps in both objective and subjective time stress among parents.
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    Gendered Shares of the Family Rush Hour in Fulltime Dual Earner Families. A Cross National Comparison
    Craig, L ; van Tienoven, TP (SPRINGER, 2020-09-24)
    There are recognised cross-national differences in the average amount and gender division of paid work and unpaid domestic work and care, but country differences between men and women in the timing and intensity of this daily workload remain under-investigated. Using couple-level time-use data from Australia, the UK, Finland, Korea and Spain (n = 1838), we probe cross-national differences in gendered time availability and constraint, focusing particularly on the early evening ‘family rush hour’. We identify daily time periods during which one partner in a fulltime dual-earner parent couple performs routine time-critical household labor and care, whilst the other partner is simultaneously at leisure. In all five countries fathers in dual fulltime earner couples are more likely than mothers to be at leisure whilst their partner does unpaid work, and this disparity occurs most in the early evening. Multivariate analyses reveal the unpaid work-leisure gap is widest in Korea and narrowest in the UK, confounding expectations that social democratic Finland would be most equitable in this measure.
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    Cross-spousal influences on mature-aged Australians' transitions in and out of employment 2001-2017
    Craig, L ; Churchill, B (SAGE PUBLICATIONS INC, 2020-09-25)
    This article uses data from the longitudinal Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey to examine cross-spousal influences on workforce transitions by men (n = 4667) and women (n = 5051) aged 50–69. We assess how gender patterns in employment (full- and part-time work) and non-employment activity (unemployment, non-employment and homemaking) changed among this age group over the period 2001–2017, which included the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008. Notwithstanding that more men than women were in full-time work, and more women than men were employed part time or were homemakers, over the period there was an overall rise in employment for both genders, which following the GFC continued most strongly for women. Random effects logistic regression on partnered men and women showed that prior to the GFC one spouse transitioning out of the labour market was associated with significantly higher odds of the other spouse also doing so. This implies coordination, for example spouses retiring together. In contrast, following the GFC, one spouse leaving paid employment was associated with higher odds of the other taking up work or increasing their hours, suggesting that the economic slowdown encouraged an added worker effect in those households, with one spouse compensating for the job loss of the other. The finding was apparent for both men and women.
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    Young people's daily activity in a globalized world: a cross-national comparison using time use data
    Craig, L ; Churchill, B ; van Tienoven, TP (Routledge Journals, Taylor and Francis, 2020)
    How much do young people’s daily activities differ according to where they live? As a global generation, young people are disproportionally subject to the risks and insecurity of globalization. However, countries differ in their support for young people’s inclusion through economic and social participation. Using time use surveys from Australia, Italy, Finland, France, Korea, Spain, the UK and the USA (n=23,271), this paper investigates national differences in the amount of time young people (20-34 years) spend on paid and unpaid work, study and leisure in each country. Gender gaps in market work and non-market work were widest in the Anglo and southern European countries. In France and Finland, gender differences in daily market and non-market activity were narrower. Young women spent more daily time in study than young men in all countries except Korea, where study time was highest. Young men and young women in social democratic Finland had more leisure time than young people elsewhere. Results suggest that young people’s experience of the consequences of globalization is not universal, but that nation-states remain relevant in determining their welfare.