How do they find the time? A time-diary analysis of how working parents preserve their time with children.
Lyn Craig
SPRC and School of Social Science and Policy, UNSW
Contact Email:   lcraigunsw.edu.au

Working parents are obliged to use non-parent childcare. However, non-parental childcare does not simply replace the care of parents. An analysis of Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 shows that parents who make use of non-parental childcare do not reduce their parental childcare time on an hour for hour basis. Since there are 24 hours in the day and non-parental childcare is not a perfect substitute for parental care, where do parents find the extra time to work in paid employment and spend long hours with their children? By comparing the time-use of employed fathers, employed mothers and mothers who are not in the labour force this paper shows the ways parents manage the dual burdens of work and family. The strategies available are (1) reducing the time devoted to other activities (principally leisure, bathing, dressing, grooming, eating) (2) rescheduling activities (from weekends to weekday or changing the time of day at which particular activities are undertaken). This paper seeks to provide an answer to how parents continue to be engaged in direct care of their own children while also committing significant time to the labour market activities, by analysing the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (over 4000 randomly selected households).

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