Family Structure and Work

This project is being conducted as part of a larger research program titled, The Dynamics of Economic and Social Change: An Analysis of the Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey.

It involved development of a typology for understanding couple households where the female is the major earner what we term female breadwinner households and then testing using data from the first two waves of the HILDA Survey. We distinguish temporary from persistent female breadwinner households and hypothesise, and confirm, that these two groups diverge on demographic, socio-economic status (SES), labour market and family commitment characteristics. Among the persistent group we further distinguish those couples where the dominance of a female earner is related to economic factors and those where it appears associated with a purposeful gender equity strategy. We again hypothesise and confirm that these household types significantly diverge, finding that men in the economic group exhibit low SES, poor labour market position, and low levels of commitment to family, while both the women and men in the equity type often achieve positive outcomes regarding gender equity and economic and family success.

One working paper has been produced and can be downloaded from the link below.

Working Paper No. 19/2004 Female Breadwinner Families: Their Existence, Persistence and Sources, by Robert Drago, David Black and Mark Wooden PDF Format (151K)

The contact for this project is Professor Mark Wooden