IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ozl/journl/v12y2009i1p65-87.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring the Work-Family Policies Mothers Say Would Help After the Birth of a Child

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer Renda

    (The Australian Institute of Family Studies)

  • Jennifer Baxter

    (The Australian Institute of Family Studies)

Abstract

Increased rates of employment amongst mothers with young children over recent years has stimulated debate about how governments and employers can support mothers to effectively combine paid work with caring for young children. This paper examines mothers’ perceived usefulness of a range of work-family policies, by considering the extent to which they have said particular policies would have helped them in the period after the birth. The 2005 Parental Leave in Australia Survey (PLAS) is used to analyse the views of mothers of children aged 15 to 29 months. The policy options addressed are: better access to part-time work; family leave options; better breastfeeding facilities at work; and more accessible, affordable or better quality child care. Mothers who returned to full-time work were the most likely to have expressed that these work family policies would have helped them. Childcare – especially affordable childcare – stands out as the policy perceived as most useful to mothers, regardless of their paid work status.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer Renda & Jennifer Baxter, 2009. "Exploring the Work-Family Policies Mothers Say Would Help After the Birth of a Child," Australian Journal of Labour Economics (AJLE), Bankwest Curtin Economics Centre (BCEC), Curtin Business School, vol. 12(1), pages 65-87.
    • Handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:12:y:2009:i:1:p:65-87
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://ftprepec.drivehq.com/ozl/journl/downloads/AJLE121renda.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Barbara Hanel, 2012. "The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave on Labour Market Outcomes," Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series wp2012n19, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne.
    2. Matthew Gray & Diana Smart, 2009. "Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children: A Valuable New Data Source for Economists," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 42(3), pages 367-376, September.
    3. Barbara Hanel, 2013. "The Impact of Paid Maternity Leave Rights on Labour Market Outcomes," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 89(286), pages 339-366, September.
    4. Guyonne Kalb, 2018. "Paid Parental Leave and Female Labour Supply: AÂ Review," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 94(304), pages 80-100, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Labour Economics; Labour Economics Policies; Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • J01 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics: General
    • J08 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - Labor Economics Policies
    • J13 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Fertility; Family Planning; Child Care; Children; Youth

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ozl:journl:v:12:y:2009:i:1:p:65-87. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sandie Rawnsley (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/becurau.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.