Home alone

Parents with children aged between 5 and 15 years of age have problems in fitting their work and other commitments around their child caring responsibilities, a national survey has shown.

The survey reveals that 15% of parents with children aged 5 - 15 years claimed that, during the past week, a child of theirs had been at home by themselves - however there are big age differences.

For those parents with children aged 5-9 years it was around 3%, while for those with children aged 10-15 years it was 21%.

Ten percent of parents with children aged 5-15 years say their child was cared for by a sibling over the age of 15 years during the past week.

Around 3% were cared for by a sibling under 15 years of age.
Parents' responses also suggest they were concerned by problems in finding care for school age children during school vacations. Parents and relatives are often looking after children during school holidays.

• One in three parents said they took leave to care for children during the most recent school holidays. [equal between men and women]
• One in four parents said their partners took leave to care for children during the most recent school holidays.
• 45% of parents said that relatives provided care during the most recent school holidays.
• 14% used a care facility while 12% used other specially designed program. [Commonwealth subsidies are available only available for care facilities - 15%]

Releasing the results of a specially commissioned Newspoll survey, NFAW spokeswoman Marie Coleman said, "These data are alarming. They demonstrate that the problem of finding care is very real for working parents with school age children."

"It is significant that the Newspoll survey tells us that the three highest priorities for parents seeking to balance work with the need to care for their child are more flexible work conditions for themselves, more flexible work conditions for their partners, and access to school vacation programs. The cost of vacation care activities was a frequently cited reason for not using them. Similarly, some children were reported as not wanting to use vacation care programs."

"School age children should not be home alone."

"The data demonstrate a complete failure of policy of both Commonwealth and State Government governments."

"We understand that the Commonwealth funding allocation for out of school hours and vacation care has not grown for a number of years. Moreover, many of the vacation activity programs potentially of interest to children over 8 years old do not attract Child Care Benefit."

"Raise the issue of school holidays in a group of grandparents and hear how many spend much of the school vacations on care duty with their grandchildren." Mrs Coleman said.

"We call on the Commonwealth Government to make immediate provisions in the current planning for the Budget 2009-10 to begin to rectify this situation. We draw to attention our recommendations in our recent submission to the House of Representatives Inquiry into pay equity."

The survey was commissioned from Newspoll by NFAW, on behalf of a consortium including The WomenSpeak Network, Security for Women, Women's Information and Referral (Vic), Network of Community Activities (NSW), Queensland Children's Activities Network, and the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission.

The complete statistical report from Newspoll, together with a graphic Power-point presentation, can be downloaded from www.nfaw.org.

NFAW, together with the Australian Federation of University Women and the Victorian Women's Information and Referral has made a Submission about the inadequacy of current out of school hours care policies and programs to the Inquiry into pay equity and other causes of disadvantage for female work-force participation currently being conducted by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Employment and Work-Place Relations.

That Submission makes the following recommendations:

1. That the inadequacy of OSHC including services for young people up to school leaving age be recognized as a major disadvantage to women's workforce participation and career development
2. That the Commonwealth Ministerial arrangements' responsibility be reviewed with a view to ensuring a clearer focus on OSHC, and ensuring better coordinated planning between agencies
3. That the Commonwealth place the improvement of OSHC systems on the COAG agenda to ensure better Commonwealth-State coordination and cooperation in re standards and provision of OSHC
4. That the Commonwealth and States/Territories commit to expansion on a systemic basis of OSHC services, and provide adequate increased resources

Media inquiries:  Marie Coleman, Chair, NFAW Social Policy Committee (mobile 0414 483 067)