Parenting in the 1990s

According to a recent study of 6,000 mothers and fathers aged 33, there is little evidence to suggest that full-time employment of both parents is linked to an erosion of family life in terms of joint activities such as family meals, outings, or contact with wider kin and friends. It is long hours (particularly when fathers work more than 50 hours per week) rather than the fact of employment itself which have a detrimental effect. The survey found:

Family life in 1990s Britain is characterised by change and uncertainty. The increased employment rates of mothers, continuing high levels of male unemployment, and the insecurity associated with the 'flexible' labour market, all have implications for the ways mothers and fathers provide for their children's material needs and allocate time to their family roles. Such changes have taken place at a time when central government has been stressing parents' private responsibility for the care and well-being of their children.

The aim of this study was to explore in detail the different patterns of employment, domestic arrangements and parenting behaviour among a large national sample of parents in Britain.

The employment situation of the parents reflected the polarisation into 'work rich' and 'work poor' households which has taken place in recent years. The dual-earner household was the most common pattern: 59 per cent of the mothers and 53 per cent of the fathers were in this category. Within these groups, the sample mothers, and the wives of the sample fathers, were twice as likely to be in part-time as full-time employment. Parents in households with two full-time earners were better qualified, had higher status occupations, and higher incomes. The main income effect of part-time maternal employment appeared to be to lift the family out of the lowest quarter of the overall household income distribution: households with only the father in employment were twice as likely to be in this category as those in which the mother worked part-time.

Just 4 per cent of the sample parents were in households with no earner. It is important to note that these also tended to be the largest families: 22 per cent of the mothers in this group had four or more children. This meant that a disproportionately large number of children were affected by economic disadvantage, since almost all of the no-earner households were in the bottom quarter of income distribution.

The small number of households with only the mother in employment were, like the no-earner group, characterised by low income and a weak labour market position. This reflected the relative lack of educational qualifications among this group of mothers, and their concentration in semi-skilled or unskilled jobs.

Longitudinal analysis using data from earlier NCDS surveys showed that sample mothers who in 1991 were in full-time employment or were the sole earners in their households were more likely than their peers to have had working mothers themselves during their childhood years.

The time available for family life for most families is structured by the relationship of one or both parents to the labour market. For many fathers, long hours of work presented an obstacle to their involvement with children and family life. More than 1 in 4 worked 50 or more hours a week, and nearly 1 in 10 worked 60 hours or more. The majority of fathers also worked 'unsocial' hours - about 2 in 3 regularly worked in the evenings and/or at weekends, and 1 in 3 at night.

By contrast, mothers worked much shorter hours - only 1 in 4 worked 35 or more hours a week, and 1 in 3 worked fewer than 16. However, a high proportion of mothers also worked 'unsocial' hours: 4 out of 10 worked in the evenings or at weekends, and 1 in 7 worked at night. In many such households, fathers were available to provide childcare. Whilst avoiding the need for extra-familial childcare, this 'shift parenting' would also mean less opportunity for both parents to spend time together with their children.

Although dual-earner families are now in the majority, there is still a lack of daycare provision for children of working parents. Two out of 3 working mothers relied on family and friends to look after their children. Only 4 out of 10 of those with children under 5 years of age used formal provision, and just 11 per cent of those with older children did so. Less than 2 per cent of working mothers had childcare provided by their employers.

In general, the more mothers were involved in work outside the home, the more fathers shared equally in childcare and household work (see Table 1).

Table 1: 'Who is normally responsible for generally being with and looking after children': by parents' employment situation
sample fathers:	dual earner:		single earner:		no earner:
	wife	wife		wife	wife
	full time	part time		home	works
	%	%		%	%	%
mostly father	2	1		<1	16	3
mostly wife	24	42		68	21	45
shared equally	72	57		32	61	53
someone else	2	-		<1	2	-
total	100	100		100	100	100
(n)	(397)	(993)		(1,008)	(44)	(78)
sample mothers:	dual earner:		single earner:		no earner:
	mother	mother		mother	mother
	full time	part time		home	works
	%	%		%	%	%
mostly mother	32	52		72	26	45
mostly husband	1	<1		-	9	1
shared equally	66	48		28	64	54
someone else	1	-		-	1	-
total	100	100		100	100	100
(n)	(532)	(1,261)		(953)	(66)	(83)

However, a considerable degree of gender segregation in parenting roles remained. Even in families where both parents were in full-time employment, mothers took major responsibility for domestic life, especially when this made demands on parental time, as in the care of sick children.

Fathers' contribution to childcare was strongly influenced by their own hours of work: those who worked long or unsocial hours did less at home, irrespective of their wives' employment situation (see Figure 1).

There was little evidence of a markedly greater contribution to family life from fathers who were not in employment, even when their wives were in paid work. These mothers thus appeared to carry a particularly heavy burden of employment outside the home plus major responsibility for domestic tasks.

Longitudinal analysis drawing on information from previous NCDS surveys found no relationship between sample fathers' contribution to the care and upbringing of their children and the level of paternal involvement they had experienced in their own families of origin.

It has been suggested that full-time employment of both parents is linked to an erosion of family life. However, there was little evidence to support this, at least in terms of joint activities such as family meals, outings, or contact with wider kin and friends. Fathers' working hours did have an effect, however, with family meals and social visits less frequent among families in which fathers worked more than 50 hours a week.

Whether mothers worked or not, or for how many hours, made little difference to the frequency of such activities. It was, however, linked to children's own social lives: having a mother who worked long (35 or more) hours was associated with fewer visits to the home by other children. This points to the importance of mothers' time in facilitating children's social activities.

There were few marked differences in the ways in which parents in different employment situations treated their children. Children with two full-time working parents were expected to make a greater contribution to their own self-care and domestic chores than those in other households. Full-time working mothers read to their children rather less often than those who were not employed or worked part-time. However, fathers in the dual full-time earner households spent comparatively more time with their children in outdoor play - although this, like their involvement in childcare and domestic work, was influenced by their own working hours.

Overall, the great majority (80 per cent or more) of both mothers and fathers were happy with their marital relationships and generally satisfied with their lives. Those in single-earner families, with only the father in employment, were, marginally, the most positive of all. However, for families with no earner, or only the mother in employment, the stresses associated with their economic disadvantage appeared to link with relatively high levels of marital unhappiness, general dissatisfaction, and vulnerability to depression.

The extent to which fathers shared in the care and socialisation of children was a key factor in mothers' marital happiness and satisfaction with life. A substantial minority of mothers who bore the full weight of domestic responsibility indicated that they were unhappy, and were also rather more likely to show signs of vulnerability to depression. Among those who were employed, the discontent of those with uninvolved partners increased with the number of hours they themselves worked. Four out of ten mothers working 35 hours or more a week reported that they were unhappily married and generally dissatisfied.

Fathers' marital happiness and satisfaction with life was only tenuously linked to their involvement with their children. In fact, a high level of involvement showed a slight negative relationship with fathers' perceived well-being, especially for those working long hours. However, these apparently different findings for fathers and mothers would seem, in fact, to represent the same phenomenon: namely, the stress experienced by those parents who combine the demands of employment and family life.

The factors influencing the employment and domestic roles adopted by parental couples are complex: some are located in the private sphere of personal behaviour, expectations and values, others in the economic and social context of family life. The findings of this study, which has sought to integrate new data pertaining to all of these domains, have an important contribution to make to current debates concerning the roles and responsibilities of today's parents.

Parental unemployment, or reliance on part-time work, do not provide an adequate basis for the economic support of dependent children. For those in the labour force, the problem is likely to be one of lack of free time. The advent of the 'flexible' but more insecure labour market, with longer average working hours, is antipathetic to family life. Employment practices, which recognised the parental responsibilities of both fathers and mothers, would ease a situation in which commitment to the labour market is an obstacle to effective parenting. Such measures would include paternity as well as maternity leave, and parental leave for family reasons.

The findings of this study confirm that an expansion in affordable daycare provision would not only widen the employment options of mothers, but also relieve the burden of combining employment and childcare.

Parenthood education at school would improve future parents' ability to meet the challenges of raising their own children.

The sample consisted of 2,800 fathers and 3,192 mothers, all of whom were members of the National Child Development Study, a longitudinal birth cohort study which has traced the lives of all those born in Britain in one week of 1958. Most of the information on which this study is based was collected at the fifth follow-up, in 1991, when the cohort members were aged 33.

Seventy-seven per cent of the women and 66 per cent of the men in the NCDS sample had become parents by the age of 33. This study focused on those living in first marriages and with all their children in the household - 76 per cent of the fathers and 72 per cent of the mothers.

A full report, Parenting in the 1990s by Elsa Ferri and Kate Smith, is published by the Family Policy Studies Centre in association with the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (price £9.50.)

Further information on the research can be obtained from Elsa Ferri on 0171 477 8483.