Study on care of children

A new Australian study claims to show that children whose mothers return to full-time work shortly after the birth of the child are not disadvantaged - and that they receive as much 'quality time' as the children of mums who stay at home to care for their children.

The study asked 3,000 mothers to keep a diary of how much contact they had with their babies - talking to, cuddles, and so on. The report, done by the Australian Institute of Family Studies, compared the time that children were 'held, cuddled, read to and talked to'.

There are some major flaws with the research. Firstly the behaviour is 'self-described' rather than being observed by an independent researcher. The research only covered two days - one during the week and one at the weekend. Secondly the study treats all cuddles, talking to etc as being 'equivalent' regardless of who is giving it - the mother or a carer. The truth is that attention and cuddles from a parent, especially a mother, is vitally important to the development of a child.

The Report found that children spent about 83 minutes less with their mother if she worked full time than if she was at home. That sounds quite hard to believe - after all that's just more than one hour! Perhaps mums who stay at home and are interacting with their children all day aren't counting the minutes or the words spoken or itemising the time in the same way as mothers who work full time!

One short interview in the Herald Sun was with a young mother who is at home with her children - she previously worked in child care, so is well placed to see both sides of the issue. She said she couldn't believe the 83 minute figure or the claims about the amount of time spent with the child!

This is always a controversial question - interestingly, some of the media articles are saying that working mums can now shed their 'guilt' at leaving their children - so even when reporting on such a study they are acknowledging a woman's inbuilt desire and responsibility to care for her children.

The Study:

Research paper no. 43
Breastfeeding and infants' time use
Jennifer Baxter and Julie Smith
Australian Institute of Family Studies, June 2009, 48 pp. ISBN 978-1-921414-09-1.
ISSN 1446-9863 (Print); ISSN 1446-9871 (Online)
See website

The full paper is also available to download in PDF format (193 KB).

Media Reports: