J Pop Research (2012) 29:229247

DOI 10.1007/s12546-012-9086-5

Dual-earner parents work-family time: the effects

of atypical work patterns and non-parental childcare
Lyn Craig Abigail Powell

Published online: 10 June 2012

Springer Science & Business Media B.V. 2012

Abstract Finding time to both earn money and raise children is demanding.
Within the constraints and opportunities of their employment and social policies
affecting work and family, parents seeking to manage their time may use a number
of strategies. For example, they can outsource childcare or adopt atypical work
patterns: non-standard work schedules, self employment, working from home. In
this paper we compare the effects of these measures on the household time use and
gender division of labour of dual-earner couples with children, using data from the
Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey, 2006 (n = 772 couples). We find
that these strategies do help households manage their work and family time.
However, this is almost exclusively a result of women changing their time use. Such
measures generally enable mothers, not fathers, to adjust paid work around family
commitments, and offer little amelioration of gendered divisions of labour. This
reinforces normative gender-role expectations and is probably a result of institutional constraints, including sparse social policy and workplace support for mothers
full-time employment and for fathers involvement in childcare.
Keywords Work-family balance
Gender division of labour
Childcare

Non-standard work schedules
Self-employment
Work from home

Non-parental childcare

Introduction
As women have moved into the workforce, co-ordinating work and family has
become increasingly difficult for families with children. Time in both paid work and
in childcare has risen, resulting in intense and conflicting demands for households.
L. Craig (&)
A. Powell
Social Policy Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia
e-mail: lcraig@unsw.edu.au

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L. Craig, A. Powell

Over recent years, there has been substantial attention to how these demands can be
assisted through social policies and workplace measures such as subsidized
childcare, paid maternity and paternity leave, the right to request part-time work,
options to work from home, and non-standard or flexible working hours (Gornick
and Meyers 2003; Lewis 2009; OECD 2007; Plantenga and Remery 2005; Rubery
and Grimshaw 2003). However, there is limited research into the empirical effects
of such measures on how families actually manage their time within households.
This is an important gap because outcomes of different measures vary considerably,
may not have the results expected, can be friendly to very different types of family
and do not equally affect all family members (Leira 2002; Saraceno and Keck
2010). For example, part-time work is likely to support traditional gender roles
(Fagan and OReilly 1998; Morehead 2005) and non-parental childcare to promote
gender equity (Bergmann 2005), but perhaps at the cost of a decrease in family care
provision (Lewis 2009; Orloff 2006). Lengthy maternity leaves weaken mothers
workforce attachment (Pettit and Hook 2009). Flexible scheduling and non-standard
hours may maximize parental time with children by facilitating tag-team
parenting, but mean that couples and families spend less time together (Crompton
2003; Gray et al. 2008; Wight et al. 2008).
Also, families must manage their time within the context of the institutional
environment in which they live and work. Their options are affected by what is
available in their workplace or feasible in their occupation, by social and family
policies, and by normative attitudes to gender and childrearing, as well as by their
own individual resources and preferences (Hobson et al. 2002). Some work
conditions, including part-time, irregular or non-standard hours, may be imposed by
workplaces, rather than freely chosen (Craig and Powell 2011; Pocock et al. 2009).
Countries vary widely in the social supports they offer working families, with wellrecognized consequences for the average gender division of employment and care.
For example, institutional support for womens employment is more extensive in the
Scandinavian social democracies than it is in liberal welfare states such as the US,
the UK and Australia, where care is regarded as primarily a family responsibility
(Gornick and Meyers 2003; Haas 2005; Lewis 2009). Nonetheless, within these
constraints, families must manage the time economy of their household,
undertaking what has been described as an active, ongoing effort to meet their
commitments to work and family (Maher et al. 2010). Individual and householdlevel adjustments are likely to be particularly salient if institutional support is sparse
(Orloff 2009).
This paper contributes to the literature by investigating the empirical effects of
four of the ways in which working parents could adjust their work conditions or
time use to meet work-family demands. These are outsourcing childcare, nonstandard work schedules (such as evening or weekend work), self-employment and
working from home. Whether imposed or chosen, these measures are likely to affect
work-family balance and the gender division of labour, and though they have been
studied separately, they have not been explicitly compared through the lens of
family time use in dual-earner households. In this paper we compare their effects on
a number of measures of parental time, investigating relationships between each of
the strategies and working mothers and fathers own time use, and that of their

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spouses. Looking at strategies together with time-use outcomes for both spouses
allows us to give a more comprehensive comparative picture of their effect within
dual-earner households than previously available. We use data from the Australian
Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (TUS) 2006, to explore the issue in a
liberal welfare state with formal gender equality but little institutional support to
combine work and family (Pocock 2005).

Background
Finding time for both paid work and family care is very challenging for
contemporary households with young children (Jacobs and Gerson 2004); demands
are particularly pressing upon mothers who wish to maintain their attachment to
paid work while their children are young. Many parents are dissatisfied with the
balance between their work and family lives but it is especially problematic for
women (Buchanan and Thornthwaite 2001; Craig 2007a) The growth in womens
employment was widely expected to have a corresponding effect on mens unpaid
work (Bergmann 2005). However, inflexible workplace expectations and persistent
masculine gender norms ensure that most men still prioritize employment over
home duties (Gornick and Meyers 2009; Williams 2001). On average, men have
increased the time they spend on housework only marginally and while they are
spending more time on childcare, contemporary mothers still spend two to three
times more daily time with children than fathers (Baxter 2009; Casper and Bianchi
2002; Craig and Bittman 2008; Fisher et al. 2007; Sullivan 2006).
Adding to the pressure, raising children has also become more time-consuming
(Craig et al. 2010; Sayer et al. 2004a, b); social expectations of what constitutes
adequate parenting have grown and intensified (Coltrane 2007; Hays 1996; Wall
2010). Parents are now involved in more aspects of their childrens lives, which adds to
parents daily time commitments (Furedi 2001; Hewlett et al. 2002). For example,
children are less likely to play or to travel to and from school unsupervised;
particularly among the middle class, they are thought to require sustained and attentive
nurturing, and constant active concerted cultivation (Lareau 2003).
Balancing work and family can be assisted by social and family policies put into
operation by governments and workplaces. As noted above, however, policies such
as subsidized childcare, paid maternity and paternity leave, the right to request parttime work, options to work from home, and flexible working hours do not all have
the same effect on work-family balance. They can engender very different family
configurations and work-care arrangements (Crompton 2006; Leira 2002; Lewis
2009). Also, the extent to which such strategies are taken up as a result of individual
choice or cultural and structural constraints, both in the family and in organizations,
is likely to alter their effect (Gregory and Milner 2009; Warren et al. 2009). Take-up
itself is probably subject to both push and pull factors, as well as being related to
occupation, qualifications and bargaining power in the workplace (Crompton 2003;
Hughes 2003; Millward 2002).Which particular measures are implemented, whether
or how they are taken up, and how they differently affect men and women, also vary
substantially across local and national contexts (Lewis 2009).

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Measures supporting work-family reconciliation are not extensive in liberal

welfare states, which have weakly regulated labour markets and relatively few public
policies directly assisting families to meet their care obligations. This leaves the
challenge of how to meet these obligations and how to divide them between mothers
and fathers to private negotiation within households (De Henau et al. 2006; Orloff
2006). Many parents in liberal welfare states do not have access to family-friendly
workplace measures, and even when measures are formally available, there may be
unwritten sanctions against accessing them, particularly for men (Bittman et al. 2004;
Gregory and Milner 2009). Particularly in difficult economic times, men may be
reluctant to take up family-friendly provisions in case they are regarded as
uncommitted to their work (Folbre 1994; Harkness and Waldfogel 2003; Rubery
and Grimshaw 2003). Reflecting normative role expectations of mothers as caregivers
and fathers as breadwinners, it is usually mothers, not fathers, who adjust their work
patterns to meet the needs of the family (Ranson 2011; Warren et al. 2009).
There has been considerable debate over whether women adjust their work
around care because they want to or because they have to. Catherine Hakim has
argued strongly that the level of workforce participation women choose is
determined primarily by their personal preferences for different combinations of
paid and unpaid (family) work (Hakim 1998, 2002). This is countered by those who
argue that womens individual choices are limited; women cannot force men,
employers or the state to share responsibility for care, and social and normative
context has a stronger influence (Hobson et al. 2002). For example, research has
found that compared to social and institutional factors, individual characteristics
only marginally influence the employment penalty of mothers cross-nationally (De
Henau et al. 2010). Also, work-care preferences may themselves be shaped by
structural constraints (Hobson 2003; Kangas and Rostgaard 2007) which not
everyone has the same capacity to overcome (McRae 2003). A balanced view is that
both agency and structure matter; individual work-family preferences will be
followed to the extent it is possible, given constraints (Crompton and Harris 1998).
As a consequence, the specifics of context matter (Lewis 2009). Australia has
been slow to institute national policies facilitating maternal employment, with its
first national paid parental leave scheme introduced only in 2011 (Baird 2011).
Family policies have historically presumed that parents (usually mothers) will cease
or reduce their economic activity to care for young children, and until recently, the
male-breadwinner household type prevailed (Brennan 2007). Now the one-and-a
half (1.5) earner household (male full-time, female part-time) is the most common
arrangement in households with children (Craig and Mullan 2009). Gender pay gaps
in average full-time weekly earnings are over 16 %, and high effective marginal tax
rates penalize families secondary income (ABS 2007; Apps 2006). Part-time
female work is often in casual positions with less extensive dismissal protections
and employers pension contributions (Pocock et al. 2009). Formal childcare is
expensive, mostly privately-provided, and sometimes considered harmful, with
intensive mothering a pervasive ideology (Craig 2007a; Gray et al. 2008). The
Australian context has to date fostered an unequal gender division of labour, but
may also have led households to seek their own solutions to managing their workfamily commitments.

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Strategies for managing work and family

Within the constraints of workplace and social structures, parents are able to take
steps to manage their own work-family time. In this paper we compare four
strategies they could adopt: adjusting their work timing through non-standard work
schedules (evening or weekend work), gaining more job control through selfemployment, changing their workplace location by working at home and limiting
their care commitments by using non-parental childcare. These strategies may hold
out the promise of relief to time-pressed households; conversely they may have little
effect in countering institutional constraints. Yet there is little empirical evidence
about how they affect parents time allocation and how they share between
themselves their commitments to work and family. We address this deficit by
examining and comparing their effect on the time parents spend in paid and unpaid
work, including childcare, and in their childrens company.
Given existing evidence that fathers are more likely than mothers to conform to
workplace norms, we expect that the strategies and associated changes in either
parents paid work arrangements will have more effect on mothers unpaid work
activities than on fathers. Given the widespread interest in identifying factors that
do affect men, and/or narrow gender divisions of labour, we determine which, if
any, work-family balance strategies make a difference to fathers time.
We also have more specific expectations for each strategy. We first expect that
the use of non-parental care will facilitate mothers workforce participation and
promote a more equal gender division of labour. Good quality, affordable
institutional childcare has been advocated as a crucial prerequisite to female
workforce participation, and thus full economic and social citizenship (Bergmann
2005; De Henau et al. 2010; Lister 2000; Orloff 1996; Pfau-Effinger 2000;
Sainsbury 1996). We would also expect the use of non-parental care to reduce
parents own childcare hours, although not on a one-for-one basis, since evidence
suggests that mothers in particular do not trade off childcare and paid work against
each other (Bianchi 2000; Bittman et al. 2004; Booth et al. 2002; Bryant and Zick
1996; Craig 2007a; Hofferth 2001).
Secondly, scheduling, including working non-standard hours, may offer families
the opportunity to limit non-parental substitute care by tag-team parenting, or at
least maximizing the time parents provide childcare (Han 2004; La Valle et al.
2002; Millward 2002). This is likely to be at the expense of couples spending time
together, however. Evidence also suggests that non-standard work schedules result
in increased time in paid work and less time available for domestic work, children
and leisure (Barnes et al. 2006; Brayfield 1995; Connelly and Kimmel 2007). This
means that we expect parents who work non-standard hours (here defined as
evening, night and weekend work), to spend longer in paid work and their spouses
to spend more time on childcare activities (see also Craig and Powell 2011).
The third strategy we investigate is self-employment. Self-employment may offer
parents a do-it-yourself solution to implacable workplace structures. It promises
greater flexibility and freedom to balance earning money around family life than
being an employee in an organization (Budig 2006; Haddock et al. 2006; Tuttle and
Garr 2009), although the drawbacks of self-employment are also well documented

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L. Craig, A. Powell

(Baines et al. 2003; Blanchflower 2000; Hyytinen and Ruuskenen 2007). Mothers in
particular may use it to reduce their hours or take on less demanding work when
children are young, especially if they cannot find organizational employment with
desirable hours or flexibility (Craig et al. 2012). We therefore expect that mothers
who are self-employed will spend less time in paid work and more time on childcare
than mothers who are organizationally employed. As a consequence, we may also
expect such households to have a less equal division of household labour, with
fathers taking on the main breadwinning role (Bell and La Valle 2003). However, it
is unlikely that we will see the converse effects in households with self-employed
fathers, with research clearly indicating that men are motivated to self-employment
more by financial considerations than family ones (DeMartino and Barbato 2003;
Gurley-Calvez et al. 2009; Tuttle and Garr 2009).
Finally, we expect working from home to allow parents to maximize their time with
children, while still maintaining some earning potential. Research has found that
women are attracted to home working because of the perceived opportunity to earn
without children missing out on their attention (Berke 2003; Hilbrecht et al. 2008;
Kelley et al. 2010; Wight and Raley 2009). We therefore expect that parents who work
from home may spend more time on childcare. Furthermore, if it is the mother who is
working at home, we expect the traditional gender division of labour to remain
unchallenged, since being at home creates favourable conditions for women to provide
more care (Hilbrecht et al. 2008; Osnowitz 2005; Sullivan and Lewis 2001).

Research focus
In summary, this paper compares the effects on Australian dual-earner households
time allocation to work and family of non-standard work schedules, selfemployment, working at home and non-parental childcare. We explore how these
work-family balance strategies affect the amount of time mothers and fathers spend
in paid work, domestic work and childcare, and the effects of using these workfamily balance strategies on spouses time; and we compare the implications of each
strategy for dual-earner households work-family balance and gender division of
labour.

Research methods
We analyse data from the ABS TUS 2006. This dataset shows all activities
performed over a 2-day period by a nationally representative sample of Australian
households. All individuals aged 15 years and above in sampled households are
required to provide time use information over the 2 days to a detail level of 5 min
intervals. This means that in couple households data are available from both
partners, so we can examine respondents activities together with their spouses
time. Respondents are asked to record their main or primary activities, any
simultaneous (or secondary) activity they engage in, who they are with and where
they are throughout each of the days.

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From the TUS we draw a subsample of men and women in couple households
(married or cohabiting) with at least one child aged 011 years. We focus on
children under 12 years old, as parenting for children in this age range is more
intensive than for older children (Craig and Sawrikar 2009). We drop couples from
the sample if one or both parents have more than 2 h of activity information missing
from their diaries. Our focus is on parents of working age, so our sample is limited
to 2054-year-olds. The sample is limited to dual-earner households since these are
households for whom work-family balance strategies are most pertinent. Households in which the male is employed part-time are excluded, because numbers were
insufficient for robust analysis: there were 49 households where the father worked
part-time and the mother either part- or full-time. Dual-earner households account
for approximately 62 % (n = 772) of couple households aged 2054 with children
aged 011 years in the 2006 TUS. Characteristics of the sample are outlined in
Table 1.
The independent variables are designed to capture (1) non-parental care, (2) nonstandard work schedules, (3) self-employment, and (4) working from home. Formal
childcare may include before and after-school care, long-day care, family day care,
preschool or kindergarten and occasional care. Informal childcare is provided by
friends or family members. Analysis of non-parental care is limited to households
where children are aged 04 (n = 385), since outsourced care is more commonly
used for this age group. Non-standard work schedules are here defined as those
worked between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m. from Monday to Friday (evenings or nights:
Table 1 Dual-earner
households aged 2054 with
children aged 011 years,
sample characteristics

Characteristics (n = 772)

Mothers

Dual FT earners

31.2

1.5 earners

68.8

Household in the lowest 60 % of the ABS

socio-economic index for areas (SEIFA)

50.2

Household in the highest 40 % of the ABS

socio-economic index for areas (SEIFA)

49.1

Youngest child 04 years

49.9

Youngest child 511 years

50.1

Infant aged less than 12 months

24.1

All children aged 1 or over

75.9

One child aged 014 years

26.0

Two or more children aged 014 years

74.0

Fathers

Aged 2034

23.4

31.7

Aged 3539

30.1

33.9

Aged 4054

46.5

34.4

Does not work long hours

55.2

83.8

Works long hours (50?)

44.8

16.2

Does not have a degree

73.4

67.5

Has a degree

25.6

31.6

Not employed in professional occupation

59.8

66.6

Employed in professional occupation

40.2

33.4

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L. Craig, A. Powell

E/N), or at weekends (W/E). Parents who work non-standard hours are defined as
those who do some or all of their paid work during non-standard hours, while
parents who work standard hours are defined as those who only work on weekdays
between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Analysis of E/N work schedules is limited to households
which completed the time-use diary on a weekday (n = 469). Self-employment is
defined in two ways: self-employed persons who have employees working for them
(also called employers) and self-employed persons who have no employees (also
called own-account workers or sole traders). The two types of self-employment are
kept separate, since each may be associated with different patterns of time use,
which may also be different for mothers and fathers and have different cross-effects
on spouses. Further, we distinguish those who work away from home from those
who work at home.
The dependent variables of interest across all analyses are:
1.

2.

3.

Paid work: employment-related activitiesmain job; other job; unpaid work in

family business or farm; work breaks; job search; communication and travel
associated with these activities.
Domestic work: housework; food or drink preparation and meal clean-up;
laundry, ironing and clothes care; tidying, dusting, scrubbing and vacuuming;
paying bills and household management; lawn, yard, pool and pet care; home
maintenance; shopping for goods and services; communication and travel
associated with these activities.
Childcare: teaching, reading, playing and talking to children; physical care,
accompanying children, supervision, and any other activities associated with
childcare.

Childcare is disaggregated by type of care activity, into (a) interactive talk-based

care including talking, listening, teaching, reading and playing games with children;
and (b) physical and accompanying routine care, including feeding, bathing,
dressing, putting children to bed, transporting children, waiting for or meeting
children, ensuring their safety and handing them over to substitute carers. This is an
important distinction because fathers spend a much higher proportion of their care in
talk-based than in routine care activities (Craig 2006).
4.

Time spent with children: disaggregated into (a) total time that a parent spends
in the company of their children and (b) time spent alone (spouse not present) in
company of children. This is an important distinction since research shows
fathers are more likely to join in care with their spouse than to care for children
alone (Craig 2006).

Analysis
We first give a descriptive overview of average time in each of our dependent
variables by gender. We then run a series of Ordinary Least Squares (OLS)
regression models testing the effects of the independent variables capturing nonparental care; non-standard work schedules; self-employment; and working from
home. We show the significance of each independent variable net of age and

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237

education level (Sayer et al. 2004a, b) (tertiary degree = 1, no tertiary degree = 0),
professional status (Wight et al. 2008) (professional = 1, non-professional = 0),
socio-economic status (Lareau 2003) (in lowest 60 % of ABS Social Economic
Indices for Area (SEIFA) = 0, highest 40 % of SEIFA = 1), number of children
and age of the youngest child (Craig and Bittman 2008) (04 years = 0,
511 years = 1). We also include a control for long weekly working hours
(50? = 1,\50 = 0). In the models testing non-parental care, only households with
children aged 04 are included, and a control for the presence of an infant aged
01 years (infant in household = 1, no infant in household = 0) is entered (Craig
et al. 2010). Full regression tables are available on request.
Data limitations
A number of constraints should be noted. First, although the ABS TUS does collect
data on income, the questions have a low response rate and are not sufficiently
reliable to use in our analysis. Instead, education level, whether or not the parent is
employed in a professional or non-professional occupation, and socio-economic
status are included as a proxy for class. In addition, the TUS collects data for only
2 days within the week. This short time period means that diary data may be
recorded on non-work days, for example.
Findings
We consider first which work-family balance strategies are used in dual-earner
households, then how much time parents spend in paid and unpaid work activities
and then how this differs by each of the different strategies.
The most commonly used work-family balance strategy we consider is nonparental care, with 69 % of households with children aged 04 using formal care
and 56 % using informal care (Table 2). With regard to working non-standard work
Table 2 Use of work-family
balance strategies among dualearner households (per cent)

Characteristics (n = 772)

Mothers

Does not use formal carea

30.9

Uses formal carea

69.1

Does not use informal carea

44.2

Uses informal carea

a

Non-parental care is limited

to households with children
aged 04 (n = 385)

Fathers

55.8

Works standard hoursb

78.9

40.9

Works evenings/nightsb

21.1

59.1

Does not work weekendsc

80.5

63.0

Working standard hours or

evenings/nights is limited to
households that responded to
TUS on a weekday (n = 469)

Works weekends

19.5

37.0

Employee

85.2

84.2

Working weekends is
limited to households that
responded to TUS on a
weekend day (n = 303)

Self employed with employees

4.1

5.1

Self employed no employees

10.6

10.8

Works away from home

80.8

96.6

Works at home

19.2

3.4

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Table 3 Average daily hours in
work activities by sex (dualearners only)

L. Craig, A. Powell

Daily hours

Mothers

Total household workload

Total workload

Fathers
19.9

10.0

9.9

Paid work

2.8

6.4

Domestic work

4.0

2.0

Childcare
Talk-based care
Routine care
Total time in childrens company
Time alone with children

3.2

1.5

1.3

0.7

1.8

0.7

11.4

8.0

4.6

1.6

schedules, almost three times as many men as women work some E/N hours, some
of which may be attributed to the high proportion of fathers that work over 50 h per
week (see long hours in Table 1). While fathers are twice as likely as mothers to
work at weekends (W/E), they are less likely to work W/E than E/N, while mothers
work E/N and W/E in similar proportions. Interestingly, similar percentages of
mothers and fathers are self-employed, while mothers are much more likely to work
at home than fathers. This may be a result of occupational differences.
On average, dual-earner parents aged 2054 with children aged 011 years old
spend a combined total of 19.9 h per day on paid work, domestic work and childcare
(Table 3). The total workload of households is evenly divided between mothers
(10.0 h per day) and fathers (9.9 h per day). However, the composition of work is
vastly different by gender, with fathers, on average, spending 6.4 h per day in paid
work, compared to mothers 2.8 h per day. This reflects the high proportion of 1.5
earner families (see Table 1). Similarly, mothers spend an average 4.0 h per day on
domestic work and 3.2 h per day on childcare, while fathers spend 2.0 h and 1.5 h
on domestic work and childcare respectively (Table 3).
The extent to which average time spent in different activities differs according to
the use of each of the work-family balance strategies is explored using multivariate
analysis (OLS regression).
Non-parental childcare
For mothers, use of formal childcare is associated with about 1 h per day more time
spent in paid work, consistent with the expectation that that the use of formal care
enables mothers participation in the labour market. The amount of time mothers
spend on childcare activities is not affected by the use of non-parental care,
indicating that they protect the time they spend caring for children even when
substitute care is used (Table 4). Mothers who use formal or informal care spend
less total time in the company of their children (just over 1 hr per day when formal
care is used and slightly less than 1 hr when informal care is used). This suggests
that it is non-active supervisory care, rather than direct childcare tasks, that is
reduced when non-parental care is used.

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239

Table 4 Increase/decrease in parents daily hours by use of non-parental care

Formal care

Informal care

Mothers

Fathers

1.04*

-1.05*

Mothers

Fathers

0.48

-0.54

Work activities
Paid work
Domestic work

-0.03

0.53*

-0.47*

Childcare

-0.36

0.03

-0.35

0.00

-0.26

-0.09

0.0

-0.27

0.31

-0.21

-0.07
-0.28

Talk-based care
Routine care
Total time with children
Time alone with children

-1.24**

0.54

-0.80*

-0.84

0.29

-0.26

0.19
-0.06

0.19

Reference category is a household where no formal non-parental care is used, there is one child aged over
12 months, in the lowest 60 % of ABS socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA), both parents employed
full-time, respondent parent does not work long hours, is aged 2034 years and has no degree
*** p \ 0.001; ** p \ 0.01; * p \ 0.05; full regression tables available from authors on request

Table 5 Increase/decrease in parents daily hours by use of non-standard hours

Works E/N
Mothers

Works W/E
Fathers

Mothers

Fathers

Work activities
Paid work
Domestic work
Childcare
Talk-based care
Routine care
Total time with children
Time alone with children

3.82***
-0.97***

2.93***
-0.50**

4.34***
-1.0**

6.23***
-1.8***

-0.86***

-0.34***

-0.93**

-0.8***

-0.35*

-0.05

-0.33

-0.41*

-0.53**

-0.26***

-0.55*

-0.39*

-1.71***

-1.64***

-2.09***

-3.29***

-0.73

-0.53**

-1.01*

-1.11***

Reference category is a household where there is one child aged 04 years, both parents are employed
full-time, in the lowest 60 % of ABS socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA), mother works standard
hours, father works standard hours, respondent parent does not work long hours, has no degree, is aged
2029 years and is not employed in a professional occupation
*** p \ 0.001; ** p \ 0.01; * p \ 0.05; full regression tables available from authors on request

For fathers, use of formal care is associated with a significant decrease in paid
work (1 hr per day). This is probably associated with the higher paid work time of
mothers when formal care is used, noted above, though it is not possible to say in
which direction the causality runs. Interestingly, while fathers do not significantly
change their time in childcare when formal care is used, they do spend significantly
longer on domestic work (approximately 30 mins per day), which may be because
they spend less time in paid work. The models suggest fathers time is unaffected by
the use of informal care.

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Table 6 Increase/decrease in parents daily hours by spouses non-standard hours

Spouse works E/N
Mothers

Spouse works W/E

Fathers

Mothers

Fathers

Work activities
Paid work

-0.25

Domestic work
Childcare

0.44*
0.55**

-0.07
-0.3
-0.31

0.17*

0.27

-0.01

0.62

0.38

0.62

0.08

1.20***

1.55***

2.89***

1.28***

Routine care

0.37*

Time alone with children

0.71

0.54*
0.54*

0.18

0.12

-0.12

0.23

Talk-based care
Total time with children

0.0
-0.04
-0.03

Reference category is a household where there is one child aged 04 years, both parents are employed
full-time, in the lowest 60 % of ABS socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA), mother works standard
hours, father works standard hours, respondent parent does not work long hours, has no degree, is aged
2029 years and is not employed in a professional occupation
*** p \ 0.001; ** p \ 0.01; * p \ 0.05; full regression tables available from authors on request

Non-standard work schedules

When parents work non-standard schedules, there is a significant effect on how they
spend their own work-family time (Table 5). Mothers and fathers who work nonstandard hours either on E/N or W/E spend significantly more time in paid work and
significantly less time in domestic work and childcare. The decrease in childcare is
constituted primarily by a decrease in routine care. However, there is also a decrease
in talk-based care for mothers who work E/N and for fathers who work W/E. Parents
who work non-standard hours spend less total time in the company of their children
than parents who work standard hours. The bulk of this difference is in time alone
with their children.
Non-standard work schedules have a substantial impact on spouses time, as well
as on the time of the parent who works them. The greatest effects are when the worker
is a father and the spouse a mother (Table 6). When fathers work non-standard hours,
mothers spend significantly longer doing domestic work and childcare than mothers
whose partners work standard hours. Mothers also spend more time on routine care if
their spouses work some E/N hours. Similarly, fathers spend more time on routine
care if their spouses work E/N, although they differ from mothers in that the overall
time they spend on childcare does not change. That is, the composition but not the
amount of care differs. In addition, parents of both sexes spend more time alone in the
company of their children if their spouses work some non-standard hours.
Self-employment
The time use of mothers and fathers who are (self-employed) employers is largely
similar to those who are organizationally employed with the exception of fathers
who spend more time alone with their children (Table 7). Mothers who are (selfemployed) own-account workers, in contrast, differ in how they spend their time

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Dual-earner parents work-family time

241

Table 7 Increase/decrease in parents daily hours by self-employment

Employer
Mothers

Own account worker

Fathers

Mothers

Fathers

Work activities
Paid work

1.07

0.09

-0.97*

-0.35

-0.15

-0.06

0.26

-0.01

Childcare

-0.26

-0.22

0.46

Talk-based care

-0.45

-0.13

0.36*

0.17

-0.06

Domestic work

Routine care

0.12

0.01
-0.06
0.08

Total time with children

-1.1

0.78

1.37**

1.61***

Time alone with children

-0.37

0.84*

0.91*

0.1

Reference category is a household where there is one child aged 04 years, both parents are employed
full-time, in the lowest 60 % of ABS socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA), respondent parent is
organizationally employed, respondent parent does not work long hours, has no degree, is aged
2029 years and is not employed in a professional occupation
*** p \ 0.001; ** p \ 0.01; * p \ 0.05; full regression tables available from authors on request
Table 8 Increase/decrease in parents daily hours by place of work
Works at home
Mothers

Fathers

Work activities
Paid work
Domestic work
Childcare
Talk-based care
Routine care
Total time with children
Time alone with children

-0.84*
0.89***
0.49*
0.16

0.81
-0.06
0.22
-0.12

0.23

0.25

1.45***

3.58***

1.08**

1.37**

Reference category is a household where there is one child aged 04 years, both parents are employed
full-time, in the lowest 60 % of ABS socio-economic indices for areas (SEIFA), respondent parent has no
degree, does not work long hours, is not employed in a professional occupation, is aged 2029 years and
works away from home
*** p \ 0.001; ** p \ 0.01; * p \ 0.05; full regression tables available from authors on request

compared to those who are organizationally employed in a number of ways. They

spend significantly less time in paid work, significantly more time on talk-based
care and significantly more time in the company of their children, including time
alone with their children. This suggests that mothers are more affected by their
employment type than are fathers.
Place of work
Mothers time use is associated with place of work to a larger extent than fathers
(Table 8). Specifically, mothers who work at home spend less time in paid work and

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L. Craig, A. Powell

more time on domestic work and childcare than mothers who leave home to work.
They also spend a greater amount of time in the company of their children, as do
fathers who work at home. However, while fathers who work at home spend more
time with their children, it appears that this is not associated with what they actually
do; they spend much the same time in paid work and childcare activities as fathers
who go out to work.

Discussion and conclusions

This research used the ABS TUS 2006 to examine how four strategies for managing
work-family time affect Australian dual-earner households. Comparing the effects
of non-standard hours, non-parental childcare, self-employment and working from
home offered an overview which adds to research examining each measure
separately. While we found that the work-family balance strategies investigated do
help households manage their time, they all had a greater effect on mothers time
than fathers time, and offered limited amelioration of gendered divisions of labour.
The findings thus support existing research that suggests fathers time priority is
paid work while mothers have the default responsibility for the home. The use of
different strategies was associated with only marginal variation within this broad
picture.
Parents who worked some non-standard hours spent more time in paid work and
less time in domestic work, childcare and in their childrens company than parents
who worked standard hours only. This was the case for both women and men, and
echoes findings in the UK (Barnes et al. 2006) and the USA (Brayfield 1995;
Connelly and Kimmel 2007). The reduction in childcare and domestic work time,
however, was not commensurate with the increase in paid work time. Also,
consistent with previous findings, use of non-parental care was not associated with a
decrease in parental childcare. Both mothers and fathers maintain their active time
with children regardless of whether they use substitute care (Bittman et al. 2004;
Craig 2007b).
For men, self-employment had a very limited relationship with quantity of time
spent in the activities we examined. However, self-employed fathers, particularly
employers, were slightly more likely than employees to supervise their children
alone during the day, and being an own-account worker meant fathers spent more
time in the company of their children, although not actively providing childcare.
Self-employment much more strongly affected mothers than fathers. Mothers who
were own-account workers spent significantly less time in paid work and more time
on talk-based care and alone in their childrens company than other working
mothers, suggesting that self-employment allows them to maximize time with
children. Thus, while these mothers do participate in both paid work and childcare,
the short time spent in paid work suggests that childcare is the higher priority.
Employer mothers averaged much the same amount of paid work as employees, but
also almost matched own-account workers high childcare time (see also Craig et al.
forthcoming).

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243

Similarly, place of work had a more substantial association with mothers time
than with fathers. Mothers who worked at home spent significantly less time in paid
work than those who worked away from home and more time on domestic work and
childcare. As with self-employment, this suggests that mothers may opt to work
from home to maximize the time they spend with and care for their children, whilst
at the same time retaining a connection to the labour market (see Hilbrecht et al.
2008). Parents who worked from home spent more time in their childrens company
and alone with their children. However, for fathers this did not result in more care
time for children; this suggests that unlike mothers they are able to draw clear
temporal and social boundaries between paid and unpaid work, despite the blurring
of spatial boundaries between the two.
Having time use data from both partners meant we could investigate how
parents working arrangements related to their spouses time. For self-employment
and place of work, there were almost no cross-effects on spouses time allocation.
For parents who worked a non-standard schedule, the effect on their spouses time
was more substantial. It also varied by sex. For fathers, the amount of time spent in
paid and unpaid work activities was largely unaffected by their spouses work
schedule; but the composition of their time did change somewhat. Fathers spent a
small but statistically significant amount of additional time on routine care activities
if their spouses worked E/N, and more time alone with children if their spouses
worked either E/N or W/E. By contrast, having a spouse with a non-standard work
schedule had a much more substantial effect on the mothers time. Mothers whose
partners worked non-standard hours were estimated to spend significantly more time
in domestic work and on childcare, particularly routine care, than mothers whose
partners worked standard hours. It is important to recognize that non-standard work
hours can be imposed on employees, and may not be a voluntary strategy to manage
work-family balance. The findings suggest that spousal impacts, which may also be
unchosen, are particularly strong upon women (see Craig and Powell 2011).
The findings show that work-family balance strategies do affect the gender
division of household labour, but not all in the same way. In particular the division
of labour was narrower among families that used formal childcare, since mothers
spent more time in paid work, while fathers spent less time in paid work and more
time on domestic work. The division of labour was also somewhat narrower in
households where the mother worked non-standard hours, since mothers themselves
spent more time on paid work and less time on unpaid work activities, while fathers
spent more time on routine childcare activities and alone with their children. In
these households, then, the time allocation of mothers more closely matched that of
fathers, than in households where mothers worked standard hours. Given that this
difference is a result of mothers themselves changing their work patterns, rather
than both partners adjusting, however, it is difficult to argue that this results in
greater gender equity. Furthermore, the gender division of labour was in some cases
actually widened, rather than narrowed. Women who were own-account workers or
who worked from home spent little time on paid work, and more time on childcare
and domestic work activities than mothers who were organizationally employed.
The time use of their spouses was largely unchanged. The other type of household
with a more pronounced gender division of labour was that in which the father

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worked non-standard hours. Fathers spent more time on paid work and less on
unpaid work, while their spouses spent significantly more time on domestic work
and childcare, in these than in other households. This implies that fathers nonstandard hours require their spouses to be even more disproportionately responsible
for running the household than are other mothers.
Thus while we have investigated work-family balance strategies that may be used
by either sex it seems clear that the adoption of these strategies for work-family
balance purposes is concentrated among mothers. Also, there were few associations
between the strategies and a more equal gender division of labour. The findings
strongly underline the persistence in Australia of normative role expectations, with
mothers as caregivers and fathers as breadwinners. Given the institutional context, the
findings are also consistent with the interpretation that mothers engage in atypical
work patterns as a result of limited work-family balance measures in organizations
and through social policy, and that cultural norms and workplace attitudes constrain
fathers from acting similarly. This conforms with the view that where collective
measures to support work-family balance are relatively sparse, solutions to workfamily time management tend to be resolved by individuals and households (De
Henau et al. 2010), but usually along stereotypical gender lines (Tang and Cousins
2005). Furthermore it confirms that individual adaptive strategies for achieving worklife balance are very limited in their potential (Gregory and Milner 2009). This
suggests that for work-family demands to be more readily met and shared more
equally between mothers and fathers institutional, not individual or household-level
responses are required. These must include family-friendly measures that can be
readily accessed through standard, organizational employment, and may require a
concerted policy focus on encouraging fathers take-up of such measures.

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