The growing trend that sees grandparents as the main childcare providers
Grandparents are often a godsend to busy parents, more than happy to entertain the little ones for days on end once in a while. But the “once in a while” is becoming more and more frequent with data released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics earlier this year finding that grandparents are the main informal child-care providers to 30 per cent of children from working families.
“In families where the youngest child attended some form of child care, 76 per cent of female parents and 94 per cent of male parents worked,” said Patrick Corr from the ABS, continuing, “This is compared with 45 per cent and 88 per cent respectively in families where the youngest child did not attend care.”
While female parents are more likely than male parents to use alternative work arrangements – such as flexible work (39 per cent), part-time work (38 per cent) and working from home (19 per cent) – to care for children, around half of all children aged 0–12 years (1.8 million) still attended some form child care. One-quarter attend formal care, which is defined as before and after school care, long day care, family day care and occasional care, whereas one-third attending informal care such as care by family members and relatives but grandparents were by far the main form of informal care.
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