Maternal Employment Status and Fathers' Involvement in Child Care

Abstract

The present paper examines the impact that maternal employment status (mother not employed, employed part-time, employed full-time) has on the time spent by Australian fathers on child care tasks, play, and other interactions with their children. In general, the findings were consistent with recent time-use studies from other countries in showing that father-participation is not strongly associated with maternal employment status. The impact was greatest when the family had young children: when there were children under three years of age, fathers were slightly more involved when mothers were employed. Preliminary findings were also reported indicating that when mothers are employed fathers appear to take more responsibility for their children. It is concluded that future research needs to investigate this latter finding in more depth by focusing on actual and perceived responsibility for child care tasks and to focus more attention on families in which fathers share equally, or have the major responsibility for child care.