Parent-only care: A child care choice for working couple families?

The article looks at decisions by couples with young children as to whether one or both parents are in paid employment and how they deal with the question of who will care for their children. It found that a substantial minority of Australian working parents with very young children often organise their work so that they do not need to use non-parental care. The paper uses 2004 data from the infant cohort of the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to examine the use of non-parental child care and fathers' involvement in child care in families in which both parents work. The main focus is the degree to which dual-employed families use parent-only care, and whether there are certain family or job characteristics associated with a higher likelihood of using parent-only care.