Jennifer Baxter

Which mothers wean their babies prematurely from full breastfeeding? An Australian cohort study.

Aim:  To identify the maternal and infant characteristics associated with an early transition from full breastfeeding to complementary or no breastfeeding during the first 2 months of life in a large, representative cohort of Australian infants.

Family structure, co-parental relationship quality, post-separation paternal involvement and children’s emotional wellbeing

Abstract It is well documented that children who experience parental divorce are more likely than those in intact families to experience a range of emotional and behavioural adjustment problems, and to perform less well academically. However, few studies of the impact of divorce have exclusively considered young children. This paper takes advantage of a recent Australian child cohort study to examine links between young children’s emotional wellbeing, the quality of the co-parental relationship, and post-separation paternal involvement. We found that while children aged 6–7 years living with both parents generally had better emotional wellbeing than similar aged children living with one parent, inter-parental hostility was an important factor in explainingyoung children’s emotional wellbeing. But regardless of family type, children whose parents had a hostile inter-parental relationship tended to have poorer emotional wellbeing than children whose parents did not have a non-hostile relationship, as reported by children and their parents.

Mothers' timing of return to Work by leave use and pre-birth job characteristics

Abstract This paper explores the timing of mothers’ return to work using data from the 2005 Parental Leave in Australia Survey (PLAS), which was nested in Wave 1.5 of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). The analyses explore differences in timing of return to work, within 18 months after a birth, according to mothers’ use of leave and employment before the birth of their child. Results showed that having worked before the birth was a strong predictor of timing of return after the birth. For those who were employed, those who used no leave had a relatively slow return to work, while among those who used leave, whether leave was paid, unpaid or a combination of paid and unpaid did not result in large differences in the likelihood of a mother returning to work by 18 months after the birth. Women who used only paid leave had a slightly higher rate of return to work than those who used unpaid leave, either on its own or in combination with paid leave. There were larger differences in timing of return within this 18-month period.

Is Money the Main Reason Mothers Return to Work after Childbearing

Women’s reasons for returning to work after childbearing are complex, often including a mix of financial and other reasons related to their preferences, choices and constraints regarding employment; various qualitative studies have explored this decision-making process. This paper also considers how these decisions about returning to work are made, but uses quantitative techniques to analyse how reasons for return to work vary with factors such as women’s timing of return to work, what types of jobs they had previously worked in, or returned to, and what type of leave they used. This enables an examination of which women feel more constrained in their labour market options by returning to work sooner than preferred, and also their reasons for returning. Analysis is based on the 2005 Parental Leave in Australia Survey, a survey nested in the Wave 1.5 collection of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Mothers had children aged between 15 and 29 months at this time, and 56 per cent of these mothers had returned to work.

Social and emotional outcomes of Australian children from Indigenous and culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Objectives: 1) profile the living environments and 2) examine the social and emotional outcomes of Australian children from Indigenous and cultural and linguistically diverse (CALD) backgrounds at school entry.

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

Despite the strength of the Australian economy and the relatively low rate of unemployment, joblessness among families with children remains high in Australia relative to many other OECD countries. Australia also has one of the highest rates of part-time employment among OECD countries, and this is particularly prevalent among employed mothers. Gaining a better understanding of the effect on families with dependent children of joblessness or working only short part-time hours on families with dependent children is important for child policy and service delivery - to the extent that any negative effects on a family’s economic resources and social connectedness, and on the psychological wellbeing of the parents, may negatively affect the wellbeing of children. This report uses data from the first four waves of data from the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to analyse the links between joblessness/short part-time hours of employment and the wellbeing of parents and their children. Key findings: Joblessness and short part-time employment - According to the LSAC data for children aged 0 to 10-11 years, over the first four waves of LSAC, at the time of the interviews: • Of the children living in couple-parent families 93 per cent had a parent working full-time/long part-time hours, 2 per cent had a parent working short part-time hours (parental employment of 20 hours or less per week) and 4 per cent lived in jobless families. • Of the children in single-parent families 31 per cent had a parent working full-time/long part-time hours, 20 per cent had a parent working short part-time hours and one-half were living in jobless families. Jobless families had on average a lower socioeconomic status (educational attainment, health, unemployment rate in the area of residence, safety of neighbourhood and access to basic services) than families working full-time/long part-time hours. Families working short part-time hours had a socioeconomic status somewhere between that of jobless families and those working full-time/long part-time hours. Single-parent families had on average lower levels of educational attainment and were less likely to come from a non-English speaking background than couple-parent families. Economic circumstances and financial wellbeing: A strong relationship between parental employment and financial wellbeing was found. For both couple- and single-parent families, those in short part-time employment had a lower weekly income than those in full-time/long part-time employment. It was noted that the increase in income in going from jobless to short part-time hours was less than in going from short part-time hours to full-time/long part-time hours. The equivalised parental incomes of jobless couple- and single-parent families were similar, indicating that jobless couple- and single-parent families had similar incomes after adjusting for differences in the costs of living associated with the different composition and size of the families. The overall picture was similar when the number of financial hardships experienced was examined. While there was some reduction in the experience of hardships when moving from being jobless to working short part-time hours, the biggest reduction in the experience of financial hardships came from moving from short part-time hours to full-time/long part-time hours. Analysis of how changes in employment or relationship status related to changes in income revealed quite large increases in income associated with increased parental employment: movements from joblessness, to having some employment, especially to full-time/long part-time hours, and movement from short part-time hours to longer hours were associated with increases in income. Shifts from being a single- to a couple-parent family were also associated with increases in income. Incomes declined when a couple-parent family changed to being a single-parent family and went from working full-time/long part-time hours to fewer or no hours. Social capital: Having strong social connections, participating in community activities and being able to get support and help (social capital) are increasingly recognised as important indicators of wellbeing in the context of socioeconomic advantage or disadvantage. In general, jobless families had the lowest levels of social capital, while families working full-time/long part-time hours had the highest. There was some variation in the level of social capital among those with short part-time hours of employment, although it was usually somewhere between the two other groups. However, once differences in financial wellbeing were held constant, there was no clear pattern in the relationship between parental employment and social capital. Mental health: There was a strong association between parents’ employment and their mental health. The key finding was that jobless parents experienced worse mental health (as indicated by higher levels of psychological distress) compared to parents working full-time/long part-time hours. The difference in mental health between parents working short part-time hours and parents working full-time/long part-time hours was smaller and, when explored further, was explained by other factors, such as financial hardship. There was a significant difference in mental health between single and couple mothers: single mothers, on average, experienced higher levels of psychological distress than couple mothers, irrespective of employment level. Further, it was apparent from the longitudinal analyses of changes in mental health that changing from being partnered to being single was associated with a decline in mental health (that is, an increase in psychological distress), and changing from being single to being partnered was associated with improvements in mental health (declines in psychological distress). Child wellbeing and developmental outcomes: Children living in a jobless family had poorer cognitive and social-emotional outcomes compared to children in families working full-time/long part-time hours. Children living in families working short part-time hours also had poorer developmental outcomes than those in families working full-time/long part-time hours, but the differences in developmental outcome between these groups of children were smaller than the differences when comparing jobless families and those working full-time/long part-time hours. About half of the difference in developmental outcome between children in jobless families and those in families working full-time/long part-time hours was explained by differences in financial wellbeing. Once financial wellbeing was taken into account in the statistical modelling, there were no significant differences in the cognitive or social-emotional wellbeing of children between families working short part-time hours and families working full-time/long part-time hours. The remaining differences in outcomes between jobless families and those working full-time/long part-time hours appeared to be related to differences in the underlying characteristics of families. Child cognitive outcomes did not vary significantly by parental employment once detailed controls for social capital, sociodemographics and local area information were included in the statistical models. While the poorer developmental outcomes for children of jobless families and those working short part-time - compared to full-time/long part-time - hours can be partially explained by parental characteristics such as education level, joblessness does appear to have an effect on developmental outcomes through its impact on financial wellbeing, parental mental health, nature of the neighbourhood, and parenting style. Taken as a whole, the analyses in this report suggest that joblessness and, to some extent, short part-time hours of employment are associated with lower levels of wellbeing for parents and for children, compared to families working full-time/long part-time hours. Lack of parental employment affects children by having consequences for their parents’ finances and mental health. The remaining differences in outcome between families who are jobless or work short part-time hours and families working full-time/long part-time hours are explained to some extent by existing socioeconomic differences that characterise parental employment, which also increase the chances of poorer developmental outcomes for children, compared to families in full-time/long part-time work.

Fathering across Families: How Father Involvement Varies for Children When Their Father Has Children Living Elsewhere

Abstract Current patterns of family formation in Australia mean that significant numbers of children are growing up in families include step-parents or step-siblings, or are headed by cohabiting rather than married parents. Further, these families may extend beyond the one household. It is this situation that is explored in this paper, with a focus on how fathering of young resident children differs when fathers have children living in another household. It is expected that when a father has children living in another household, his capacity to be involved with children living within the current couple- family may be somewhat diminished. This paper explores to what extent this is true, by examining father involvement using Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). Multivariate analyses of these data found that on some aspects of father involvement, those fathers with children living elsewhere did have diminished levels of involvement. Partnered fathers with children living elsewhere were less involved in some aspects of care of resident children. Children in these families had less time in the day when they were with their father without their mother also present. Further, fathers who had children living elsewhere spent less time doing child care tasks. These findings were apparent in multivariate analyses, which also took account of a wide range of family, parental and child characteristics.

Children’s time with fathers and mothers over the pre-school years: A longitudinal time-use study of couple families in Australia

This paper explores fathering over children’s early years, using longitudinal time-use data for children at ages 0–1, 2–3 and 4–5 years. These Australian data provide information about children’s total and solo time with fathers and mothers on weekdays and weekends. This unique large-scale dataset allows analyses of changes in children’s time with fathers as they grow and with contextual changes such as increases in parental work hours. Taking account of mothers’ return to work, which may mean changes to fathers’ roles, is especially relevant at these ages. Descriptive and multivariate analyses confirm that time with fathers and mothers vary with parents’ work hours, with longitudinal models showing that changes in parental work hours are reflected in changes in children’s time with parents. Children’s time with fathers and mothers are also explored according to a range of other child, parental and family characteristics.

Employment and the Life Course: Birth Cohort Differences of Young Australian Women

This chapter examines trends in female employment in Australia using the detailed education, relationship, fertility and work history of respondents from the first four waves of the Negotiating the Life Course project. The work history data provide information about respondents’ employment status in each year from the age of 15 years to the survey year. Focusing on females, changes in education, fertility and relationship formation for ages 15–40, are explored for women born in the 1940s through to those born in the 1960s and 1970s. This information is then used to examine how these changes relate to employment trends. The analyses show that women are spending longer in study, resulting in higher levels of education, and delays in entry to full-time employment. Significant changes in patterns of relationship formation and fertility are also apparent, especially at the younger ages. Overall, trends in employment participation from earlier to more recent birth cohorts were affected by the extended time in full-time study (reducing employment rates during those years of study), complemented by higher education levels and the reduced amount of time spent with children (increasing employment rates).