Managing Work and Family

Abstract

This report analyses the 1997 Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Time Use Survey (TUS) in order to investigate the ways in which Australians manage to balance the competing demands of work and family. It uses four measures, three relating to the ‘objective’ time pressure of the total hours worked (paid work, unpaid work and child care), and one measure of ‘subjective’ time pressure (feelings of being rushed or pressed for time). These measures are applied to six household types classified according to the arrangements each has made in relation to employment and child are: male-breadwinner family, one-and-a-half-earner family, (standard full-time) dual-career family (woman working standard full-time hours), (long hours full-time) dual-career family (woman working more than 49 hours a week), family in which the man does not work full-time, and sole mother family.

The report investigates the differences between these household types, between men and women as individuals within households, and between sole mothers and married mothers. It also investigates the ways in which two key work-family policy measures – non-parental childcare and part-time work – currently affect work-family balance within Australian households.