Where Do They Find the Time? An Analysis of How Parents Shift and Squeeze Their Time around Work and Child Care

Abstract

Parents who undertake paid work are obliged to spend time away from their children, and to use nonparental. This has given rise to concern that children are missing out on parental attention. However, time-use studies have consistently shown that parents who are in paid employment do not reduce their parental time on an hour-for-hour basis. Since there are only 24 hours in the day, how do parents continue to be engaged in direct care of their own children while also committing significant time to labor market activities? Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics Time Use Survey 1997 (4,059 randomly selected households) to compare the time allocation of employed fathers, employed mo..