4.4 Participation of mothers (continued)
| No School qualification | School Qualification | Post-school Qualification | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sole mothers with youngest child: | ||||
| 0-4 years | 9,570 | 9,050 | 3,950 | 25,030 |
| 5-9 years | 4,170 | 3,810 | 2,000 | 11,190 |
| 10-17 years | 3,100 | 2,750 | 1,720 | 8,580 |
| any age | 16,850 | 15,610 | 7,670 | 44,790 |
| Partnered mothers with youngest child: | ||||
| 0-4 years | 10,940 | 27,770 | 18,550 | 60,390 |
| 5-9 years | 4,130 | 7,690 | 4,290 | 17,360 |
| 10-17 years | 3,940 | 5,980 | 3,370 | 14,540 |
| any age | 19,010 | 41,440 | 26,210 | 92,290 |
| All mothers with youngest child: | ||||
| 0-4 years | 20,520 | 36,830 | 22,500 | 85,420 |
| 5-9 years | 8,300 | 11,510 | 6,290 | 28,550 |
| 10-17 years | 7,040 | 8,720 | 5,090 | 23,120 |
| any age | 35,850 | 57,050 | 33,880 | 137,080 |
| For comparison: | ||||
| Women with no children | 20,610 | 25,770 | 15,550 | 71,610 |
| Men | 30,840 | 33,310 | 20,290 | 99,740 |
Source: 2001 Census.
Analysis is restricted to people aged 20-54 years.
Totals include people whose highest qualification was not stated or unidentifiable so may be greater than the sum of the individual columns.
Table 3 and Table 4 also allow some “what if?” testing to take place. For example, if sole mothers were to have the same participation rates in each cell of Table 3 as partnered mothers, the overall participation of mothers would increase from 69% to 72%.[17] Of the additional 13,700 labour force participants that would result, only a half would have school or post-school qualifications.
We now turn to analysing mothers’ participation by the age of the mother. On the face of it, mothers’ participation increases with age, reaching a peak in the 45-49 year age group (Figure 9). Conversely, the participation of women with no children declines gradually with age, although this may reflect a lower participation rate of women whose children have left home and who do not return to the labour force.
- Figure 9 – Mothers’ participation by age of mother
-
- Source: 2001 Census.
When the age of the youngest child is considered, however, mothers’ participation is in fact reasonably steady across age groups (Figure 10). What drives the steeply ascending participation profile for mothers in Figure 9 is simply that older women are less likely to have families with young children in them.
- Figure 10 – Mothers’ participation by age of mother and age of youngest child
-
- Source: 2001 Census.
Furthermore, the characteristic “dip” in women’s overall labour force participation, as illustrated in Figure 2, is explained largely by the age profile of mothers of young children. Women aged 30-34 years, for example, have relatively low participation rates because they are the most likely to have pre-school children (Table 5).
| Age of women (years) | Age of youngest child (years) | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0-4 | 5-9 | 10-17 | No children | |
| 20-24 | 18 | 1 | 0 | 80 |
| 25-29 | 33 | 8 | 1 | 58 |
| 30-34 | 42 | 17 | 5 | 37 |
| 35-39 | 30 | 28 | 17 | 25 |
| 40-44 | 11 | 22 | 35 | 32 |
| 45-49 | 2 | 8 | 31 | 59 |
| 50-54 | 1 | 2 | 12 | 86 |
Source: 2001 Census.
Rows add across to 100%.
Notes
- [17]The overall participation rate for all women aged 20-54 (not just mothers) would rise by 1.5 percentage points.
