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Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence
Author(s) -
Kelley C.G.E.,
Kelley S.M.C.,
Evans M.D.R.,
Kelley J.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
international journal of social welfare
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.664
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1468-2397
pISSN - 1369-6866
DOI - 10.1111/j.1468-2397.2008.00633.x
Subject(s) - opposition (politics) , earnings , welfare , feeling , demographic economics , publishing , paid work , social policy , psychology , sociology , hourly wage , social psychology , labour economics , economics , political science , working hours , wage , law , accounting , politics
Kelley CGE, Kelley SMC, Evans MDR, Kelley J. Attitudes toward home‐based employment for mothers of young children: Australian evidence
Int J Soc Welfare 2010: 19: 33–44 © 2008 The Author(s), Journal compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd and the International Journal of Social Welfare. People have mixed feelings about paid employment for mothers with young children. This might reflect opposition to women's work per se or, instead, fear that children are harmed by the mother's absence from the home. To find out, we developed new questions differentiating support for or opposition to mothers working for pay depending on whether the employment is home‐based or outside the home. Data from a large representative national sample of Australia ( n = 1,324) show that public support for employment is about 30 percentage points greater if the mother works at home. Structural equation analyses show social differences in levels of support. Thus work at home provides a way of increasing labour force participation and earnings for mothers (with the welfare benefits that implies), which is congruent with public opinion.