Abstract
ABSTRACTMothers caring for an infant or toddler continue to face barriers in returning to work after child birth. Mothers caring for an infant or toddler with a disability, however, may face even greater barriers. This article contributes to the literature by exploring the employment costs for this group of mothers using a novel Australian administrative data set. The employment patterns of mothers with and without a disabled infant or toddler are compared both before and after child birth. The data follow 7600 mothers on a bi-weekly basis for the entire period 12 months before and the 24 months after child birth and contain information on the disability status of the child, measures of employment and the intensity of employment. I find that mothers of disabled toddlers and infants suffer employment disadvantages relative to mothers of non-disabled children. The employment gaps grow from approximately 6 percentage points shortly after their children are born to 14–17 percentage points when their children are 12–24 months old. The employment gaps exist for full-time employment as well as for short part-time employment.
Highlights
Roger WilkinsThe HILDA ProjectCommenced in 2001, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a nationally representative longitudinal study of Australian households
Consistent with the Canberra Group’s recommendations, large irregular payments received by individuals are excluded from income for the analysis presented in this report—that is, it is regular disposable income that is examined
Young men no longer in the parental home had left their parents’ home, on average, at 23.1 years of age in 2001 and at 23.5 years of age in 2017. These results suggest that young adults in Australia today are taking more time before entering living arrangements that have long defined adulthood
Summary
Commenced in 2001, the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey is a nationally representative longitudinal study of Australian households. The first looks at use of formal child care for children not yet at school by couple parents, and the second at use of the same type of child care by single mothers.4 This analysis is restricted to families who have at least one child aged 0 to 4 years. With respect to family and household-level characteristics, the probability of using formal care for children not yet at school increases with the age of the youngest child in the family, by 4.8 percentage points per year among couple families and 5.6 percentage points per year among single mothers. The rate of transition from fulltime employment to non-employment has trended downwards over this century, while transitions from full-time employment to part-time employment, after rising between 2005 and 2008, have since declined slightly
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