4   “Overworked” New Zealand households and gender equity in paid work (continued)

Figures 10 and 11 show patterns of work for couples with dependent children of any age (that is, between 0 and 17 years). They confirm the pattern illustrated by both the OECD (2004) and Johnston (2005). That is, New Zealand mothers move steadily back into paid work, including full-time work, as­ their children get older. So when a childrearing lifecycle approach is taken, New Zealand couples are at the upper end of the OECD in terms of weekly working hours, although well short of countries like the United States.

Figure 10 – Mothers and fathers' average weekly hours in paid work (parents aged 25-50), child under 18 (including those not working)

Source: OECD data Gornick (2005), New Zealand data from the Census.

Figure 11 – Mothers and fathers' average weekly hours in paid work (parents aged 25-50), child under 18 (only those in paid employment)

Source: OECD data Gornick (2005), New Zealand data from the Census.

Yet, while mothers resume paid work as their child gets older, one of the factors that elevates the weekly working hours of New Zealand couples is the long average hours worked by fathers. Figure 12 shows that New Zealand is second only to the United Kingdom in terms of the average number of hours worked. Swedish fathers, on average, work the shortest hours. New Zealand mothers are more in the middle of the range, not dissimilar to Swedish mothers (Figure 13).

Figure 12 – Fathers' average weekly hours of paid work, child under 18, only those in paid work

Source: OECD data Gornick (2005), New Zealand data from the Census.

Figure 13 – Mothers' average weekly hours of paid work, child under 18, only those in paid work

Source: OECD data Gornick (2005), New Zealand data from the Census.

Given that New Zealand fathers work such long hours on average, a more equal distribution of paid work between fathers and mothers would require either that mothers hugely increase the number of paid hours they work when their children are young, or that fathers reduce their hours of paid work. When the hours worked of mothers and fathers are directly compared within each country, New Zealand is not high on the gender equity stakes for parents of dependent children (see Appendix 5).[8] The three countries that stand out as having a relatively high level of gender equality in paid work are Poland, Sweden and the United States.

Comparing the United States and Sweden, which are both high-income countries with a high level of gender equity, reveals two quite distinct models. In the United States the high level of gender equity is achieved by both partners in couples working relatively long hours. In contrast, both mothers and fathers work relatively short hours in Sweden. Across all age groups, time use data suggest that in Sweden the balance between women’s and men’s paid working hours improved between 1990/91 and 2000/1, with the change coming about through a reduction of an average three hours per week worked by men, together with no change for women (Statistics Sweden 2004).

In light of the Swedish model, it is possible that further increases in mothers’ paid employment might allow New Zealand fathers to reduce their hours of work. But how likely is this? In recent times it appears the opposite trend has occurred, that is, on average, fathers’ hours have increased as more women have moved into the workforce (Callister 2004). Yet, research carried out in Australia on the preferences of partnered fathers suggests that, overall, fathers’ satisfaction with their work hours decreased as the number of hours worked increased (Weston et al 2004). In addition, the proportion of fathers who would prefer to work fewer hours (taking into account the impact of this on incomes) increases with the number of hours worked. The research also found, however, that a quarter of fathers working very long hours (60 hours or more a week) were satisfied with their working hours. In New Zealand, an online survey of fathers by the EEO Trust (2003) indicated that 80% of them wished they could spend more time with their children, although this survey was highly unrepresentative.[9] It is difficult to know what prevents concerned fathers from reducing their hours of paid work.