Search

For parents there can be negative aspects of how work 'spills over' to family. This analysis focuses on mothers of young children and considers how aspects of work-to-family strain differ for single and couple mothers. While there has been increased focus on the work-family strains of mothers, less is known about single mothers and their experience of work-family strain. We might expect that single mothers would have more difficulty in combining work and family, given that they do not have the support of a resident partner to assist with childrearing responsibilities. This paper explores the relationships between several demographic, employment and supports factors and work-family strain. It also examines whether these associations are different according to family form; that is, whether certain factors make the work-family balance significantly worse or better for single mothers than for otherwise similar couple-parent mothers. The analysis is based on the 2004 Growing up in Australia: the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC). This dataset contains detailed family and child data for around 10,000 families, all with at least one child aged 5 or under. With such a large sample size, the number of single mothers is sufficiently large to enable more analyses than is often possible from survey data. Keywords: work and family; single mothers; employment, There is considerable evidence that for parents, aspects of work 'spill over' into family life, sometimes in a positive way (work-family gains) and other times in a negative way (work-family [...]

Based on census data, a fall in rates of home ownership has been observed among Australians aged less than 35 years. There is debate as to whether this fall is due to changing affordability (Yates 1999, 2002) or to delays in family formation among young Australians (Mudd et al. 2001). The first explanation implies that more Australians will not achieve home ownership across their lifetime; the second that home ownership is merely delayed. Using recent data collections, the proportion that had purchased a house by each age for successive cohorts is examined while simultaneously controlling for family formation and other characteristics. Year of birth is taken as the indicator of changing affordability across time. We find that once other characteristics are controlled, there is no indication of falls in home ownership across birth cohorts. If anything, more recent birth cohorts are more likely to be homeowners than earlier cohorts. Formal marriage is the key variable associated with entry to home ownership., Trends in homeownership among young people in Australia: in decline or just delayed? A number of recent studies have examined aspects of changing housing tenure in Australia (Hughes 1996, Yates [...]

The transition from home to school is a major change in children's lives. It marks the first compulsory and universal point of contact between children and social institutions beyond their [...]

While Australia is in a stronger position than many others, the global recession generated by the financial crisis in 2008 is nevertheless having a significant impact on the Australian economy. [...]

The importance of breastfeeding to the wellbeing of infants and mothers is well established (Fifty-Fourth World Health Assembly, 2001). However, women often discontinue breastfeeding in the first few months after [...]

Most Australians at some point face the challenges of balancing work and family responsibilities. The pressures that families face when negotiating these issues has long been a policy concern. Discussions [...]

Introduction One solution to the child care question, adopted by a substantial minority of couple families in which both parents are employed, is to organise their work in such a [...]

The role of the father is multifaceted, with fathers often undertaking the breadwinner role in couple families, spending time with children, and providing support and assistance to the mother. This [...]

The ways children spend their time both reflect and contribute to developmental changes and to developmental differences between children at a given time. In this paper Dr Baxter and Professor [...]

The labour market participation of mothers with young children has undergone significant changes in recent decades. Despite the extent of these changes, surprisingly little is known about the types of [...]

Statistics on employment among mothers consistently show that the age of the youngest child is an important determinant of the probability of being employed. The relationship between childbearing and employment [...]

Based on the first wave of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC), this paper investigates potential sources of work-to-family strain for partnered parents of young children. The analysis identifies [...]