FAMILIES ' EMPLOYMENT AND CHILDCARE ARRANGEMENTS

This study investigated parents ' experiences and their views on labour force participation, child care a"angements, and parental leave policies. Participants were 60 families with five-year-old children, selected randomly from 14 schools in the greater Wellington region. This paper focuses on parents ' employment experiences, with some reference to parental leave. Many mothers had participated in part-time paid work, and the percentage in full-time paid work increased to 19 % by the year the children were four to five years of age. Each year from the child's birth up until school entry, over a third of the fathers were working 50 hours or more per week. A high incidence of participation in the early childhood education and care services was evident. There was a relatively low uptake of parental leave among mother and fathers who were in the paid worliforce the year the children were born. Some of the main themes addressed in this paper are: diversity and change, the need for flexibility in workplaces, the impact of long hours of paid work on families, finandal constraints, and gender roles. The Emopean Commission Childcare Network (1990) has proposed that both the provision of childcare services and the sharing of childcare responsibilities between parents are important strategies to ' increase equality in the labo