Review of government initiatives for reconciling work and family life

Presents a review of government initiatives that help families balance their work and family responsibilities, highlighting innovative ideas and including a discussion of international trends and themes. Summary This AIFS Research Report presents a review of government initiatives that help families balance their work and family responsibilities, highlighting innovative ideas and including a discussion of international trends and themes. Most of the information reviewed in this report pertains to OECD countries, especially New Zealand and countries in the European Union, as work and family policies have been extensively developed in these countries. Some East Asian countries have also been included, and for some countries, state (as opposed to federal) policies are discussed. The wide range of policies that have been used in different countries, combined with significant variation in approaches, means that those reviewed in this report are necessarily selective, and much of the discussion is quite broad. This review particularly focuses on government policies and approaches that address work and family issues for people with caring responsibilities for children or the elderly. The report outlines some of the broader aims, approaches and considerations of governments in the area of work and family, and then reviews policies related to leave and return-to-work policies; child care, child payments and early childhood education; working hours and other aspects of employment; and governance, support and promotion of work–family initiatives. This review reflects work–family policies that have recently been implemented (up to 2014) across developed countries, but not necessarily the state of play at the time of publication

Child care participation and maternal employment trends in Australia

This paper explores trends in types of child care for children aged under 12 years old with employed mothers in Australia, from the 1980s through to 2011, to examine how the roles of different forms of care provision have changed in this environment of increasing maternal employment.AbstractMany industrialised countries, Australia included, have experienced significant growth in maternal employment over recent decades, even among mothers of very young children. This has meant that many families have found different ways of managing child care responsibilities, and as such, formal child care provision has become a key strategy and government priority in addressing work–family reconciliation. Despite this, trends in child care use have rarely been analysed specifically in relation to maternal employment. This paper explores trends in types of child care for children aged under 12 years old with employed mothers in Australia, from the 1980s through to 2011, to examine how the roles of different forms of care provision have changed in this environment of increasing maternal employment. The paper demonstrates that maternal employment is not always associated with extensive use of formal child care, with much of the child care for maternal employment being provided informally by family members. Nevertheless, there has been much more use of formal child care (especially long day care centres for younger children and outside-school-hours care for school-aged children) for children of employed mothers over this time. This care has not, however, displaced informal care, with formal child care often being combined with informal child care. Also, there continues to be a portion of the population who manage without non-parental child care, and this is to some extent related to some mothers (and to a much lesser extent, fathers) working short hours, being self-employed, working from home or working flexible hours

Child care and early childhood education in Australia

Presents information about the types of child care used by children in Australia, highlighting how arrangements change as children grow, and how they vary for families of different characteristics. Summary Child care and early childhood education hold a key place in the wellbeing of families and their local communities. They provide key opportunities for children\u27s development and social engagement, and for enabling families to engage fully in the labour market, each of which is important in contributing to stronger families. This 2015 Families Week Facts Sheet presents information about the types of child care used by children in Australia, highlighting how arrangements change as children grow, and how they vary for families of different characteristics. Different forms of child care are covered here. These include formal child care, which is provided predominantly through long day care and outside-school-hours care, and informal child care, in which families rely on grandparents or other relatives, friends, neighbours or nannies to care for their children. Of relevance also is early childhood education, which many children attend in the year before full-time school (and sometimes earlier than this). This has been referred to as preschool here. The main objective of preschool is not child care, but to provide an early education for children, to help prepare them for school. It is included here as it may provide an alternative to child care for some families.1 Throughout this Facts Sheet, the term "early childhood education or care" (ECEC) is used to encompass children\u27s participation in both child care and early childhood education

Access to early childhood education in Australia

This report presents AIFS research undertaken to identify gaps in access to and participation in preschool programs by Australian children in the year before full-time school review how "access" to preschool services is conceptualised and defined; identify the issues and factors that affect access to preschool services; and document and provide recommendations on how access to preschool services can be measured beyond broad performance indicators. To meet these objectives, the publication includes a review of Australian and international literature; results of consultations across Australia; and analyses of participation of children in early childhood education using a number of Australian datasets. The key messages identified by the study included: "Access" to Early Childhood Education (ECE) in Australia is considered to be more than just "participation" in ECE. It should, for example, also cover elements of quality, relevance to children. However, data are not available that would allow measurement against such a broadly defined concept of "access". There are difficulties and limitations in using existing survey and administrative data to measure "access" by "participation" in ECE. Nevertheless these data provide broad indications of ECE participation. Participation rates have the advantage of being easily understood and easily compared over jurisdictions and time. The complexity and variation in how ECE is delivered in Australia has implications for the measurement of access. This is related to different nomenclature used, and varied ages at which children are eligible to attend ECE. The different models of delivery of ECE also complicate the measurement issues, with long day care a widespread provider of ECE in some states/territories, but not others. Given there are difficulties in measuring access, this research used a number of datasets, to provide a fuller understanding of access across Australia. The analyses showed that children missing out on ECE were more often represented among disadvantaged families, and whose children are perhaps in greatest need of ECE to achieve school-readiness. The groups of children who stood out in these analyses as being less likely to be participating in ECE were Indigenous children and children from NESB backgrounds

Australian families with children and adolescents

This report highlights some of the ways in which Australian families with children under 18 years old have changed or remained stable.Key messagesThis fact sheet examines the extent and nature of change in household and family forms. The broad trends observed include the following: Family size has decreased, with the proportion of those families with only one or two children younger than 18 years increasing over successive Census periods.In turn, larger families, with three, four or more children are less prevalent.For those families headed by an unpartnered parent, however, the numbers of children in the family have changed little over the last decade.Women are having children later in life than was apparent for earlier generations. As a result, the proportion of mothers (of children under 18 years old) in the 45-54 year age group has steadily increased over the last two decades. These trends are similar both for mothers in couple families and for unpartnered mothers, though fewer of the former than the latter group tend to be younger than 25 years old.The proportions of intact, step- and blended families with children under 18 years old have not changed over the last 20 years. While rates of cohabitation have increased steadily over the decades, step-families show the highest rate, followed by blended families.Given that as children mature their chance of having experienced parental separation at some stage in their childhood increases, the proportion living in one-parent families or in step-families also increases progressively with increases in the children\u27s age.Rates of paid employment of mothers have steadily increased, typically involving part-time work when children are younger than 12 years.When family forms (couple or one-parent family) and the employment circumstances of the parent(s) who are living with the child are taken into account, then the most common arrangements for children aged under 5 years old is for them to live in a couple family in which one parent works full-time and the other is either not employed or away from work. For older age groups, the most common situation is to be living in a dual-earning couple family.Mothers continue to spend more time than fathers on household work, even if working full-time. Some fathers work well beyond the standard full-time hours. This tends to generate dissatisfaction and lowered wellbeing across a range of areas, including family relationships, though some fathers appear to thrive on such work hours, at least in the short-term.Most parents in intact families report high satisfaction with their relationship with each other, though fathers tend to be more satisfied than mothers. While most are highly satisfied with their own and the other parent\u27s relationship with their children, both mothers and fathers are more likely to express high satisfaction with the mother-child than father-child relationship.Biological parent—child relationships tend to be viewed more favourably by those experiencing them than is the case for step-parent—child relationships. Compared with step-fathers, step-mothers report lower relationship quality with their step-children.Overall, adolescents seem highly satisfied with their relationship with their parents, but relationships with step-parents are less likely to be viewed in such a favourable light. Step-daughters seem less satisfied than step-sons with these relationships

Employment characteristics and transitions of mothers in the longitudinal study of Australian children

Executive summary: For women, the life stage at which combining employment with other commitments is most challenging is when they are raising their children. This report focuses on this time, providing information about mothers’ employment from those with babies through to those with primary school-age children. The report provides some broad descriptive information about mothers’ employment patterns, including work hours, job contracts and occupations, in addition to the simpler measure of whether or not they are employed. It also explores how patterns vary across the characteristics of mothers and families. The report is based on the first four waves of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), including families of children from both the B cohort (‘birth’ at Wave 1, born between March 2003 and February 2004) and the K cohort (‘kindergarten’ at Wave 1, born between March 1999 and February 2000). The data are primarily taken from reports of mothers of these children and specifically relate to characteristics of their employment at each wave. This allows analyses of differences in employment characteristics of mothers who have different personal and family characteristics and also allows analyses of mothers’ employment transitions from one wave to the next. Both approaches are used in this report

The Employment of Partnered Mothers in Australia, 1981 to 2001

The employment rate of young partnered women and partnered mothers increased considerably over the 1980s, while there was less change in the 1990s. This thesis explores these changes, with a focus on partnered mothers with young children. The objectives are to describe what the changes in female employment were, and to analyse why they might have occurred. ¶ The analyses were primarily quantitative, although they were put into context with extensive reviews of Australian and, where relevant, international literature. The primary source of data was Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) Census data. Other data used included those from the ABS Child Care Surveys, Negotiating the Life Course Survey and the National Social Science Survey. ..

Parental joblessness, financial disadvantage and the wellbeing of parents and children

This paper used Longitudinal Study of Australian Children data to analyse links between parental employment and the wellbeing of families.The study found that jobless families and families with short part-time hours (fewer than 21 hours) were at considerable financial disadvantage compared to families with full-time or long part-time hours of employment.Of the children in the study, 5 per cent were living in a family with short part-time hours, and 11 per cent lived in a jobless family – this figure includes half of the children of single parents. Developmental outcomes for these children were lower than those for children in families working more than 21 hours. Joblessness and short part-time hours contributed to these poor outcomes for children through the effect of financial stress on parents.Authored by Jennifer Baxter, Matthew Gray, Kelly Hand, and Alan Hayes

‘WATER IS LIFE’: EXPLORING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PLACE IDENTITY, WATER AND ADAPTIVE CAPACITY IN FORT RESOLUTION, NORTHWEST TERRITORIES, CANADA

Water is recognised as a fundamental human right in Canada’s Northwest Territories (NWT). However, the current and potential effects of climate change coupled with resource development pressures are leading to concerns about maintaining the health and viability of freshwater in the NWT. These intersecting multiple exposures can have far-reaching impacts for NWT residents who rely on water for cultural, spiritual, economic and social purposes. Ongoing changes (e.g., to water quantity, water quality, weather, precipitation and ice dynamics, for example) will increasingly require NWT residents to adapt, seek ways to plan for the future, identify opportunities, and moderate the effects of current and potential future change related to water. Understanding the strategies people employ around adaptation and what shapes adaptive capacity has been a critical focus of the climate change literature, ranging from individual livelihood levels to national and international analyses. Adaptation and adaptive capacity are multi-dimensional concepts, and to date, the majority of adaptation assessment research has focused on objective dimensions of adaptation and adaptive capacity, including financial and human capital. Increasingly, calls are being made to include subjective dimensions in assessments of adaptation and adaptive capacity. Subjective dimensions are abstract, difficult to quantify, non-material and often relate to human characteristics such as perceptions, beliefs and values. Work on subjective dimensions has to date focused on perceptions of risk and capacity to adapt, but has generally been less emphasised in the climate change literature. There is a recognized need to expand understandings of subjective dimensions to include new literatures and adopt approaches that recognize the values and lived experiences of people in a place, including how values both shape and are shaped by experiences of climate-related change. Place identity, a concept rooted in human geography and environmental psychology, offers a novel avenue for exploring subjective dimensions of adaptation and adaptive capacity. The purpose of this dissertation was to address the above gap in the climate change literature, by examining the potential relationships between place identity and adaptation and adaptive capacity, in the context of water resources. This dissertation employed a single, exploratory case study undertaken in collaboration with the community of Fort Resolution, a Dene-Métis community in the southern NWT, located on the shores of Great Slave Lake and near the Slave River and Slave River Delta. Water has been identified as a fundamental aspect of life in Fort Resolution, and contributes to identity and livelihoods. A qualitative data collection strategy was used, consisting of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, focus groups and participatory photography with community youth. Results revealed a bilateral, mutually reinforcing relationship between place identity and adaptation and adaptive capacity, and one that is influenced by community-identified changes to water. In Fort Resolution, connections and identification to water and place are mediated through several core place-value themes, including connections to heritage and the past, health and wellbeing, and social connections, among others. Participants are experiencing changing water conditions that are felt to be impacting use of, and relationship to, water or places mediated by water. Common experiences of water change coalesced around community-identified changes in water quantity and flow, concerns about water quality, and changes in weather, precipitation and ice. While climate change was recognized in some cases as a driver of related changes, attribution of cause was largely linked with resource development upstream of the community. These community-identified changes in water are impacting the place identity of residents, through impacts to places that support maintenance and function of place identity and related place-values. Participants described impacts to rootedness, sense of belonging, self-efficacy, security and continuity of place. In response to identified changes, a series of interrelated adaptation strategies emerged at individual livelihood and collective levels. These adaptation strategies are positively and negatively shaped both by reactions to changing continuity of places that support place identity and a desire to protect such places now and in the future. Study findings contribute to the growing body of work on subjective dimensions of adaptation and adaptive capacity, including consideration of place identity as a subjective dimension in adaptation assessments. In Fort Resolution, core dimensions of adaptation and adaptive capacity, including perceptions of capacity, equity and social capital, are in part shaped by place identity and vice versa. As such, understanding how people relate to and identify with places, and how these relationships influence adaptation and adaptive capacity, can help to identify opportunities for building place-based solutions and collective action situations to address current and future environmental change, particularly with respect to water

Access to early childhood education in Australia: insights from a qualitative study

Based on interviews with 94 parents in Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania, and Western Australia, this report investigates parents\u27 knowledge of and attitudes towards early childhood education. Executive summary This report documents the background, methodology and findings from the Access to Early Childhood Education (AECE): Qualitative Study, undertaken by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) and commissioned by the then Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR; now the Department of Education) on behalf of the Early Childhood Data Subgroup (ECDSG). This research was commissioned within the context of the National Partnership Agreement on Early Childhood Education (NP ECE), which jointly committed the Commonwealth and all state and territory governments to achieving universal access to preschool by 2013. The AECE Qualitative Study was undertaken in order to develop a qualitative evidence base about how the concept of “access” to early childhood education (ECE) is defined and understood, and to explore what reasons and barriers exist in relation to access to ECE. A qualitative framework was chosen for this study to enable more in-depth study of any barriers to ECE, and/or factors that lead to parents making particular decisions about their children’s use of ECE. &nbsp