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Family Size and the Gendered Division of Unpaid Work: Implications for Fertility Decisions in Australia
Author(s) -
Wright Paula
Publication year - 2007
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.2007.tb00075.x
Subject(s) - unpaid work , workload , fertility , division of labour , time allocation , work (physics) , paid work , time use survey , project commissioning , labour economics , demographic economics , economics , sociology , publishing , working hours , demography , political science , engineering , management , population , mechanical engineering , market economy , law
Low fertility in Australia has been attributed to social factors which encourage women to devote more time to market work and reduce the number of children they have. This paper explores whether women might have fewer children because they experience a gendered division of unpaid household and childcare work. It uses ABS time use data to analyse the time spent by men and women in unpaid household and childcare, and finds an unpaid workload for women that is greater with additional children, and a relatively consistent workload for men across all family sizes. Controlling for the amount of paid work also suggests that the additional time spent, and increased share of unpaid workload experienced by women, is independent of time spent in paid work. This is consistent with the suggestion that women might restrict the number of children they have in order to control their unpaid workload.