TIME USE AND GENDER SURVEY

 The Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW hosted a seminar in June entitled “Time Use and Gender.’

 

Professor Suzanne Bianchi from Marylands University was the guest speaker and she addressed the issue of the changing rhythms of American family life. Her research was based on Time Use data collected by the U.S. Government starting in 1965 at ten yearly intervals and more recently its 2000 and 2003 study.

 

The two major changes highlighted by Professor Bianchi’s work were the increase in women’s market time and how men have responded to these changes from 1965 to the present. In 1965 American mothers spent 9 hours a week in paid work; this has increased to 26 hours per week in 2003. Housework hours have declined from 32 hours per week in 1965 to 14 hours in 2003, while child care has increased from 10 hours per week in 1965 to 14.1 hours in 2003.

 

Prof. Bianchi found the total workload hours of American men and women are very similar. Women do a combination of unpaid and paid work while men still maintain a high level of paid employment. Her research highlights many changes in family life in America that are similar to the Australian experience.

 

She pointed out that

· Mothers have embraced paid work in greater numbers than in the past but it is still largely part time work.

· To protect their time with their children, mothers have forgone full market equality with men.

· There has been the development of a culture of intensive mothering coupled with the pressure on fathers to be involved in the care of their children.

· The father’s hours of paid work are still high, his contribution to the family’s economic wellbeing allows the family to ‘purchase mothercare’ and support its children.

· Mothers are reporting an increase in ‘multitasking’ i.e. child care with other free time activity; this has increased from 22% in 1975 to 43% in 2000 to as high as 60% today.

 

SOME RECENT CHANGES

In summary, Prof. Bianchi stated that in order to achieve a balance between mothering and paid work American mothers have had to embrace compromise. This entails working part time, reducing time spent on housework, time with husband and friends and reduced time for self care. They have less time for community work and  feel time pressured. 

 

The next three speakers, Dr Louise Bloomfield, Dr Lyn Craig and Dr Trish Hill all received Office for Women Time Use Fellowships which allowed them to undertake their Australian research.

 

Dr Bloomfield used the 1997 Time Use Survey (T.U.S.) to investigate men’s leisure time use, unhealthy lifestyles and mortality rates while Dr Craig used the data from the same TUS as a basis of her paper on ‘children and parental time – a gender analysis.’ Dr Trish Hall focused on ‘Time Use and Disadvantage’ All three presentations were most interesting.

 

Finally, Dr Julie Smith from ANU,               spoke about her recently completed study on ‘Time Use and New Mothers’ for which she recruited new mothers to record their activities over a seven day period using an electronic data recorder.

 

 

 

 

 

 

In brief, she noted that these mothers spent 11 hours per week feeding their babies and 8 hours soothing and settling their baby this being the equivalent of a part time job. They spent 14 hours per week doing housework, 54 hours sleeping, 8 hours playing with their children and 4 hours in paid employment per week.

 

She looked at the changes to a mother’s time as the baby grew having tracked time use at the pre baby stage and at 3, 6 and 9 months of age. She looked at issues of multi tasking, breastfeeding, sleep loss, the contribution of the father and time stresses.

 

This was a most interesting seminar which presented a picture of how women and men use their time in the care of their families, in paid employment and in leisure.

 

 

 

Parenting Payment: The new federal government policy called ‘Helping People Move into Work’, which came into operation on July 1^st, puts pressure on sole parents who receive the Parenting Payment to return to paid work when their youngest child is eight years old by transferring them to the Newstart Allowance ($27 per week less), and requiring them to actively seek work. 

 

 Some families will be exempt from these measures, including those who are home schooling their children or providing foster care. For those with a disabled child, case by case exemptions may apply if there is a child under 16 who has a disability which requires the parent’s support during school hours. Consideration will also be given to those caring for frail or disabled adults

 

While home schooling and providing foster care are worthy pursuits they are pursuits of choice, whereas caring for one's own disabled child or parent is not. Caring for a disabled child is onerous when the load is shared between two parents. It is much more so for a sole parent.   

 

Withdrawal of all of one’s welfare payment for 8 weeks will apply as a deterrent to those who are refused an exemption and who decline a reasonable job offer. The government will be the arbiter of what is a reasonable offer.

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Electoral Changes: The federal government recently passed a law whereby, once election writs are issued no-one will be able to have their name added to the electoral role or update their details. Previously one had at least seven days in which to attend to this. Who will this affect most?  First time voters  i.e. young people, who tend to vote Labor in higher numbers than older people. Before the 2004 election 78,000 first timers enrolled during the seven day period.

 

Another change introduced is a rise in the level of permitted undisclosed donations to political parties from $1500 to $10,000. Because political parties’ state and territory branches are separate entities one could now donate $90,000 to the party of one’s choice without having to declare it.   This hardly makes the political process more transparent.