The Australian Time Use Survey of New Mothers
Julie Smith and Mark Ellwood
Australian Centre for Economic Research on Health, ANU and Pace Productivity Inc., Canada
Contact Email:   julie.smithanu.edu.au

Although the presence of a newborn in a family is very time-intensive, national time use data focusing on new mothers’ time use is rarely collected. This is despite the labour market and social policy importance of understanding maternal time use during infancy. The intensive time demands of an infant on its mother also present particular research design and measurement issues.
The nationwide Time Use Survey of New Mothers (TUSNM) commenced at the Australian National University in March 2005. Around 200 mothers have enrolled in weeklong time-use tracking sessions using an electronic tracking device, the TimeCorder. Data was collected pre-natally, and at 3 months, 6 months or 9 months post-natally. Mothers did up to four tracking sessions over the period of the study, allowing comparison over time of the same mother-infant pair, as well as analysis of activities for mothers of infants at different ages. Data on socio-demographic, employment, wage and childcare variables, and infant feeding practices was also collected via questionnaire.

This paper will outline the TUSNM methods and present initial results, and explore implications of maternal time investments in infant care for women’s labour market participation and retirement incomes policy.

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