Killian Mullan

How Mothers and Fathers Share Childcare A Cross-National Time-Use Comparison

In most families today, childcare remains divided unequally between fathers and mothers. Scholars argue that persistence of the gendered division of childcare is due to multiple causes, including values about gender and family, disparities in paid work, class, and social context. It is likely that all of these factors interact, but to date researchers have not explored such interactions. To address this gap, we analyze nationally representative time-use data from Australia, Denmark, France, and Italy. These countries have different employment patterns, social and family policies, and cultural attitudes toward parenting and gender equality. Using data from matched married couples, we conduct a cross-national study of mothers’ and fathers’ relative time in childcare, divided along dimensions of task (i.e., routine versus non-routine activities) and co-presence (i.e., caring for children together as a couple versus caring solo). Results show that mothers’ and fathers’ work arrangements and education relate modestly to shares of childcare, and this relationship differs across countries. We find cross-national variation in whether more equal shares result from the behavior of mothers, fathers, or both spouses. Results illustrate the relevance of social context in accentuating or minimizing the impact of individual- and household-level characteristics.

Parenthood, policy and work-family time in Australia 1992—2006

This article explores how having children impacted upon (a) paid work, domestic work and childcare (total workload) and (b) the gender division of labour in Australia over a 15-year period during which government changed from the progressive Labor Party to the socially conservative National/Liberal Party Coalition. It describes changes and continuity in government policies and rhetoric about work, family and gender issues and trends in workforce participation. Data from three successive nationally representative Time Use Surveys (1992, 1997 and 2006), N=3846, are analysed. The difference between parents’ and non-parents’ total workload grew substantially under both governments, especially for women. In households with children there was a nascent trend to gender convergence in paid and unpaid work under Labor, which reversed under the Coalition.

Shared parent–child leisure time in four countries

Sharing leisure experiences is thought to promote family bonding and communication, and foster children’s intellectual, social and psychological development. Such time is ‘purposive’, and requires planning, organisation and maintenance, usually from the mother. Do parents and children spend more time in shared leisure together in countries where mothers do more childcare and spend longer each day with children? Using time use data we compare shared parent–child shared leisure time in four countries with different maternal work–force participation and attitudes to substitute childcare and child-raising: USA, Australia, Denmark and France. We create harmonised measures of leisure time mothers are with children, and time both parents are with children engaging in leisure in the same location (except in the USA, which has information from only one parent). To isolate shared interactive activities, time is further subdivided into (a) watching TV, DVDs or videos with children, (b) non-TV leisure time with children and (c) leisure time with children outside the family home. We find that overall time with children varies substantially between countries, reflecting mothers’ average time in paid work, but time in shared parent–child leisure, particularly outside the family home, does not.

Being a pretty good citizen: an analysis and monetary valuation of formal and informal voluntary work by gender and educational attainment†

This paper is set in the context of macrosocial/macroeconomic theories of the organization of both paid and unpaid work. The specific topic investigated is engagement in unpaid voluntary work, an activity which is thought to be important for social cohesion, civil society and citizenship. Research on the sources of social cohesion has focused on organizational membership and voluntary organization activity. There has been little investigation of informal helping of non-resident kin, friends or acquaintances, an activity which is not measured in most social surveys but is measured in time use surveys. Previous research shows that the highly educated are more likely to engage in formal voluntary organizations and data from the UK 2000 HETUS survey confirm that the highly educated spend more time on formally organised voluntary work. However, the less qualified, particularly women, spend more time on extra-household unpaid helping activities. Since both types of voluntary work are partly dependent on available time, these findings are modelled adjusting for time allocated to paid work, study, family and personal care. The findings remain statistically significant. Drawing on work carried out by the Office for National Statistics, a monetary value is placed on both formally organized and informal voluntary work. Although the median wage rates for formal voluntary work are greater than those for informal helping, the latter is greater in frequency and duration and therefore more economically valuable from a population perspective. This finding is discussed in the light of recent debates on citizenship and gender.

Young people's time use and maternal employment in the UK.

This paper analyses the relationship between young peoples time use and maternal employment in the United Kingdom (UK). Two dimensions of young peoples time use are important for understanding the impact of maternal employment. The first of these is family context. This concerns the time young people are near their parents or not. The second relates to young peoples activity patterns. Combining information from both dimensions is necessary to provide a comprehensive overview of the impact of maternal employment on young peoples time use. The paper demonstrates that young peoples time use is associated with maternal employment both in terms of activity patterns and family context. Young people with employed mothers spend more time alone with a father, and more time with neither parent. More specifically, young people with mothers employed full time (FT) spend significantly more time watching TV than those whose mothers are not employed, especially when they are not near any parents. There is a negative association between FT maternal employment and the time young people spend in achievement-related activities, concentrated in time when alone with a mother. Unlike time in leisure activities or time watching TV, time in achievement-related activities when in the presence of a father does not increase to compensate for the loss in time spent in achievement-related activities when alone with a mother.

Australian fathers' work and family time in comparative and temporal perspective

Abstract Expectations of fathers have moved from being financial providers to also taking an active, hands-on role in the care of children. What does this mean for contemporary Australian fathers’ time commitments to work and family? This paper draws together studies using time use data from Australia, USA, France, Italy and Denmark to show change and continuity in Australian fathers’ time over the period 1992–2006, and how they currently compare with fathers in the other countries. It discusses the policy context of each country, which may inform fathering norms and behavior, and looks at their employment time, their housework, the specific childcare activities they undertake, and how they share childcare with mothers in relative terms. The research shows gender disparities remain wide, but despite long work hours, Australian fathers are high care participants in world terms, their childcare time is going up, and they are increasing their repertoire of care activities.

Valuing Parental Childcare in the United Kingdom

Abstract A recognized shortcoming of the present system of national accounting (the United Nations System of National Accounts) is the omission of nonmarket production from national accounts. Arguably, some of the most important nonmarket production carried out within the home relates to the care of children. This study estimates the monetary value of the childcare provided by parents to children ages 0–13 years in the United Kingdom, exploiting a unique data source that contains information on the amount of time spent on childcare from the perspectives of both parents and children. Using these data, the time input into childcare by parents and the time output of care are both measured and valued. Results at the micro level focus on variation of the imputed value of inputs and outputs of childcare by gender, household structure, and household composition. At the macro level, estimates of the imputed value of childcare are compared to the UKs gross domestic product (GDP).

Accounting for Housing in Poverty Analysis

The treatment of housing in the definition of income used to measure poverty makes a big difference to who is counted as poor. Both the Before Housing Costs (BHC) and After Housing Costs (AHC) measures in current use in the UK pose problems. We compare BHC and AHC income with an alternative measure, overcoming their respective flaws by including in income the difference between the estimated value of housing consumed and housing costs, or net imputed rent. We investigate whether findings about poverty among children and pensioners, and the effectiveness of poverty-reducing policies, are affected by accounting for housing in this way.

Have mobile devices changed working patterns in the 21st century? A time-diary analysis of work extension in the UK:

It is commonly claimed that ubiquitous connectivity erodes the boundaries that once separated work from other aspects of life. Mobile devices in particular enable people to perform work-related activities anytime anywhere. Surprisingly, however, we know little about how people nationwide organise their daily working time over a period that has witnessed rapid technological change. Using the United Kingdom Time Use Surveys 2000 and 2015, covering this period of technological change, we studied work extension practices, and the links between work extension, total work hours and subjective time pressure. We found a significant, though small, increase in work extension, and evidence that it was significantly associated with time pressure in 2015, but not in 2000. Additionally, work extension increased total work hours, which was concentrated entirely in time working with a mobile device. We discuss our results in light of some taken-for-granted narratives about mobile devices allowing work to colonise life.

A Socio‐Economic Profile of Families in the First Wave of the Longitudinal Study of Indigenous Children

Abstract ‘Footprints in time’, the Longitudinal Study ofIndigenous Children (LSIC), has been devel-oped to provide insights into how Indigenouschildren’searlyyearsaffecttheirdevelopment.Socio-economicfactorsareatthecoreofmanyanalyses of child development and well-beingandthisarticleprovidesasocio-economicpro-file of Indigenous families in the first wave ofthe LSIC. Utilising 12 indicators that are or-ganisedintothreegroups—primarycarer,fam-ilyincomeandfinancialstress—thearticlepro-vides an extensive overview of the full rangeof socio-economic data available in the LSIC.The article examines whether, when taken to-gether, the different indicators tell a consistentstory. It finds that, broadly, they do. The articleraises some issues about the reporting of cer-tain government payments and highlights theimportanceoffamilysizewhenlookingatfam-ily income. The article concludes by pointingto the potential for future research that thesedata present. ∗ Mullan: Australian Institute of Family Studies, Victoria3000 Australia; Redmond: School of Social andPolicy Studies, Flinders University, South Australia5001 Australia. Corresponding author: Mullan, email