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Grandparents Do 1/3 of Childcare
Sydney Morning Herald
Australia
July 12, 2005
Grandparents are providing almost one third of childcare in Australia, a new social survey shows.
In its Australian Social Trends 2005 report, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says parents hand over their children to grandparents mostly so they can go to work.
More than one half of the 591,600 children in grandparent care were there because their parents were working, looking for work, or training for work, the ABS said.
Of the 1.4 million children aged up to 11 years who used childcare in 2002, 63 per cent were cared for informally and half of this was provided by grandparents.
Other informal care was picked up by non-resident parents, brothers or sisters, or other relatives.
Labor has blamed the reliance on grandparents on government mismanagement.
"Care by grandparents should be voluntary and not forced on them by the desperate circumstances of their children who cannot find childcare," Labor's childcare spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek said in a statement.
"This is breath-taking mismanagement."
The government also needed to focus on the use of informal care by parents needing to look for work, she said.
But the ABS also found that more than 55 per cent of children did not use any type of childcare.
Around 37 per cent of all childcare was structured in family day care, childcare centres, and before and after school care.
One-parent families used childcare more than their couple equivalents, but income ranges had little impact on a family's use of childcare, the ABS said.
Employed sole parents relied less on grandparents for childcare, however.
"Lone parents may have less access to the grandparents associated with the child's non-resident parent," the ABS said.
"Lone parents who are employed may also have a greater need for long periods of care, more usually met through formal care."
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