Dual-Parent Joblessness, Household Work and Its Moderating Role on Children’s Joblessness as Young Adults

Abstract

Using data from the Household, Income, and Labour Dynamics in Australia (HILDA) Survey, we examine whether living in jobless families where parents devote more time to household work shields children against their own joblessness in the future. We draw on a representative sample of young adults who were aged between 4 and 17 years in 2001 and lived with both parents through to 2007 (N = 1,852). A series of mixed-effect regression models suggest that dual-parent joblessness is associated with an increase in families’ overall household production. The extra household work of fathers has a moderating role on young people’s later joblessness in young adulthood; young adults raised in households in which fathers increase their household work time during jobless periods are less likely to themselves become jobless as adults. This effect is not found if mothers increase their household work time.