For some it's an opportunity to connect with the grandchildren while for others providing child care can be a 24/7 arrangement, but what is unpaid care actually worth in Australia?
The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) has been trying to measure the hours spent caring for children under 15 and assign a monetary value to that work.
Looking just at unpaid child care, the ABS' experimental estimates show it was worth $89.4 billion in the June quarter of 2021, using the opportunity cost method, which assumes that when unpaid care is provided, the carer has forgone the chance to use that time undertaking paid work.
This could add up to over $350 billion a year, though the ABS cautions that its method is skewed by people working in higher-paying or specialised occupations, which produces estimates in a higher range.
Women carry out the lion's share of unpaid child care in Australia. Source: SBS News
If paid the same rate as a housekeeper, their work is worth $53.4 billion per quarter.
Another way of calculating the rate is by applying the pay rates of equivalent occupations. For example, calculating the number of unpaid hours spent preparing food and working out what a kitchenhand would be paid for that time.
Using this method, a quarter of unpaid child care is worth roughly $55.6 billion per quarter.
How many hours are spent on unpaid child care?
ABS analysis shows that women do 70 per cent of unpaid child care in Australia.
Women contributed 1,349.5 million hours of unpaid child care in the June quarter of 2021 compared to 592 million hours for men
Those aged 35-44 contributed the most to unpaid child care, doing 808.5 million hours, followed by 21 to 34-year-olds, who performed 656 million hours.
The 15-20 age group was the smallest, contributing 39.6 million hours, or around 2 per cent of the total.
The ABS measured activities including minding children and playing/reading/talking with children, as well as cooking, transporting, feeding, providing physical and emotional care and teaching/reprimanding children.
Source: SBS News
The Productivity Commission that the federal government completely subsidise child care for families with incomes up to $80,000 — which would cover about one in three families with children under 12.
