School of Social and Political Sciences - Research Publications
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ItemGender patterns in domestic labour among young adults in different living arrangements in Australia(Sage Publications Ltd, 2016-12-01)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.
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ItemThe Composition of Grandparent Childcare: Gendered Patterns in Cross-national Perspective(Policy Press, 2019-01-01)This exciting collection presents an in-depth, up-to-date analysis of the unprecedented phenomenon of increasing numbers of grandparents worldwide, co-existing and interacting for longer periods of time with their grandchildren.
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ItemThe composition of parents' and grandparents' child-care time: gender and generational patterns in activity, multi-tasking and co-presence(Cambridge University Press, 2016-04-01)How do grandparents spend their child-care time? We examine how the composition of grandparent child care differs from parent child care, and whether child-care composition is more gender-similar for grandparents than for parents. Using the most recent (2006) Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey, we investigate along three dimensions: (a) the activities child care consists of (routine versus non-routine), (b) whether it is multi-tasked (and whether it is paired with productive activities or with leisure), and (c) whether it is done solo or with a partner present. We find fathers and grandmothers' active child care is similarly apportioned between routine and non-routine activities, while mothers spend much more, and grandfathers spend much less, of their child-care time in routine care activities. Fathers and grandfathers spend similar proportions of their child-care time multi-tasking with leisure (about 50%) and performing care without their spouse present (about 20%), differing significantly from women on both these measures. Gender differences in the proportion of child care multi-tasked with productive activities (paid work, domestic work or other child care) are the same in both generations, but gender differences in the proportion of child care that is spent in routine activities, and that is done without a partner present, are significantly less for grandparents than for parents. The narrower gender gaps result from grandmothers spending less of their child-care time on these measures than mothers, not from grandfathers spending more of their child-care time on these measures than fathers.
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ItemCo-resident Parents and Young People Aged 15-34: Who Does What Housework?(Springer Verlag, 2015-04-01)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 (ABS) 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=1946 households comprised of 2806 young people and 5129 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.
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ItemThe Effect of a First Born Child on Work and Childcare Time Allocation: Pre-post Analysis of Australian Couples(Springer Verlag, 2017-03-01)This paper uses Australian data from a national representative sample of Australian couples having their first child. Using data from before and after the birth of the child on a range of variables, including economic resources, gender attitudes, workplace flexibility, and availability of non-parental childcare, we first model the factors are associated with the decision to remain in work or not after the birth of the first child. The main finding here is that childbirth has a major impact on mothers’ paid work-time, whereas for fathers it has very little impact. Factors that are related to a mother’s decision to remain in work or not include the absolute (but not relative) pay of each parent, the father’s workplace flexibility, and paid parental leave available to the mother. We then model the factors that govern, for those mothers remaining in paid work, how much paid work they undertake. We find that changing employers is related to mothers’ work hours, as are absolute post-birth salaries, as is the relative pay of each partner. As with the decision to work or not, the availability of paid parental leave to the mother is significantly related to the amount of work-time for those mothers that do continue to work. Similarly, the use of external childcare is positively associated with maternal work hours. Finally, we model the factors that determine childcare time allocation and find that for neither parent do pre-birth economic resources significantly affect childcare time, once a decision about basic work patterns has been made. Gender role attitudes affect childcare time decisions, unlike work time decisions.
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ItemShares of Housework Between Mothers, Fathers and Young People: Routine and Non-routine Housework, Doing Housework for Oneself and Others(Springer Verlag, 2018-02-01)We use data from the most recent Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey to investigate shares of domestic work along two dimensions; routine and non-routine activities, and housework done for the whole household versus housework done for oneself only. We argue that the latter is an underutilised marker of responsibility for household management and serving others. Exploiting data from matched household members, we examine relative shares of fathers and mothers, and also of co-resident young people aged 15-34 (416 households), to include inputs from the younger generation as well as the parental couple. Mothers do the greatest share of routine housework and housework for others; parents are relatively equal in the shares of non-routine housework and housework done for themselves only. Young people take on a minimal share of total household work, particularly tasks done for others in the family. Parents’ employment configuration is associated with adjustments in shares between them, with no effect on children’s shares.
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ItemThe Role of Trusted Adults in Young People's Social and Economic Lives(Sage Publications Inc, 2018-07-01)In moving toward adulthood, young people make formative choices about their social and economic engagement while developmentally seeking autonomy from parents. Who else then contributes to guiding young people during this formative life-stage? This article explores one contributing relationship: relationships with trusted adults. Past research has shown that these adults provide motivational, emotional, and instrumental support to young people, but less is known about how and why their support is appropriate particularly during young adulthood. Using qualitative data from an Australian Research Council–funded study, the article explores how and why trusted adults are important and influential, detailing how they talk, what they offer, and how their role differs according to young people’s level of engagement or disengagement from education/employment. The article explores how the trusted adult relationship is developmentally appropriate for young people and outlines implications for policy and future research.
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ItemThe multitasking parent: Time penalties, dimensions, and gender differences(Palgrave Macmillan, 2016-01-01)The main benefit of multitasking is that it allows people to do more than one activity at the same time. However, people usually cannot give their full attention to two activities when they multitask (Just et al. 2001). Thus, multitasking may come at a cost. One part of this multitasking cost is that people may enjoy an activity less if they cannot give it their full attention. Talking to a friend while doing homework may not be as enjoyable as talking to a friend without anything else on the mind. Another important part of the multitasking cost is related to task completion time. When people divide their attention between two tasks, they tend to take longer time to complete each of the tasks, especially if a task is cognitively challenging (Rubinstein, Meyer, and Evans 2001). For example, two experimental studies find that students take a longer time to read a passage of text if they are sending and receiving instant messages while reading (Fox, Rosen, and Crawford 2009; Bowman et al. 2010).
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ItemGender, Economics, and Unpaid Work(Springer, 2017)To understand work from a gender perspective, it is essential to acknowledge and value both paid employment and unpaid work. Paid employment garners wages; unpaid work is the production of goods or services that are consumed by those within or outside a household, but not for sale in the market (OECD 2016). Unpaid work includes housework, home maintenance, gardening, crop growing, and caring for children, elders, and those who are sick or are living with a disability. It is productive activity that contributes to the wealth of nations and the economic welfare and well-being of households, but is not remunerated. Because the distribution of labor reflects and creates financial disparity, how market and nonmarket work is divided by gender is a critical social issue.
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ItemHousework, intergenerational dependency and challenges to traditional gender roles(Routledge, 2017-03-03)This chapter investigates predictors of domestic work in two-generation households in which young people aged 15-34 co-reside with their parents. While we know about the gender division of housework among adult couples (e.g. Bianchi and Milkie 2010), the literature on the domestic work of children and teenagers is growing (Evertsson 2006; Salman Rizavi and Sofer 2010; Miller 2012). However, the domestic work of co-resident young adults and their parents is largely unexplored (Mitchell 2004). This significant knowledge gap has occurred despite the number of young people who co-reside with their parents (e.g. Mitchell 2004; ABS 2013a) and divisions of domestic work being a marker of workload and gender equity (Craig and Baxter 2016). Using nationally representative time use data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) from 2006, we address this gap by examining the domestic contribution of young adults, together with their parents’ domestic work time.