“We’re taking a little longer to overcome some of those vital milestones where previous generations fell a little faster.
Katie Greenaway, a professor of psychology at the University of Melbourne, lives alone and says more women are making the decision to start their careers before moving on to the next stage of life. Credit: Justin McManus
“It’s also an act of choice for a lot of people, women who want to establish careers and stuff before they get to that stage, and it’s becoming more normative.”
Although COVID-19 financial tensions were an obvious cause for young adults to move home or stay in the family home, Dharma Arunachalam, a professor of sociology and anthropology at Monash University, said that this trend existed before the virus reached Australia.
“If we look at the long-term trend of non-dependent children living with their parents, between 2011 and 2016 the proportion also increased.
“There’s been a lot more going on than just COVID. COVID probably made it worse and it did [the trend] stronger between 2016 and 2021, but going back to the causes suggested for this increase, the economic capacity of young people to be able to live alone and pay rent was already a factor, ”he said.
The fact that young people could not move as much as they usually do probably contributed to an increase in people living in single-person homes during the pandemic, Professor Arunachalam said.
“We’re taking a little longer to overcome some of these milestones in life.”
Dr. Katie Greenaway, professor of psychology
The accessibility of housing and a difficult labor market at the time the census was conducted were reasons for the jump of young adults home. The Australian Institute of Family Studies had observed this trend since 2016.
Census statistics supported the trend of more people forming a family later, as seen in the number of women and men still caring for children until middle age.
In the 35-44 age group, 1.04 million women and 862,771 men cared for their children, but between the ages of 45 and 54, more men (527,151) still cared for children than women (511,283). ), which could be reflected. more men with second families.
In the increasingly complicated area of unpaid domestic work, the census found a large gender gap among age groups.
A much larger number of women do more than 30 hours of unpaid domestic work during their first years of breeding and income. Credit: iStock
In the 25-34 age group, when many people start a family and work, five times more women did 30 hours or more of unpaid housework a week than men.
Among the men surveyed from the census of this group, 41,733 men said they had done more than 30 hours of domestic work, compared to 228,536 women.
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In the age group of 35 to 44, ages at which women reach their peak income, the number of women who claim to do 30 hours or more per week of unpaid work at home (340,387) was more than 4.5 times more than that of the age group. number of men who worked more than 30 hours (71,917).
In all, nearly 1.4 million women said they did 30 hours or more of housework a week, compared to 394,995 men.
Twice as many women (nearly 1.7 million) said they did between 15 and 29 hours a week of household chores compared to men (about 820,000).
The perpetual gender pay gap in Australia, which is pronounced after women have children, is partly attributed to inequality in unpaid domestic work, including the so-called ‘mental burden’. New research from the Australian Institute of Family Studies showed that women also carry the vast majority of this work.
Professor Lyn Craig, a professor of sociology and social policy at the University of Melbourne, said it was disappointing to see the census show that domestic inequalities continued.
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“It reflects and creates inequalities in the job market, as well as a lot of stress … trying to manage it all,” Craig said.
“I hope some of the government’s (federal, NSW) new approaches to structural constraints, such as the affordability of childcare and actively addressing the gender pay gap, will make some difference, but it’s a long, slow process, and women deserve better. “
The gender gap between men and women caring for their own children was much smaller than the gap in domestic work. Between the ages of 25 and 44, more women said they cared for their children than men, but at 45 more men than women said they cared for their own children.
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