by KIRSTY STEIN
News journalist
CHILDCARE and workplace policies need to recognise the critical role grandparents, and particularly older women, playing in nurturing Australia’s young.
A National Seniors Productive Ageing Centre report found grandparents cared for 837,000 children in a typical week in 2014, far more than any other form of day care.
However, there was growing tension between the push for people to work for longer and policies to boost women’s participation in the workforce.
More than 70 per cent of 209 grandparents surveyed had altered the days or shifts they worked to help bridge the care gap, 55 per cent had reduced their work hours and 18 per cent had changed jobs.
A third had changed the timing of their retirement to care for grandchildren.
The report found despite the vital role they played, grandparent carers had been invisible in child care and workforce policy.
“The tension between policies that promote female participation in the workforce, which expand demand for childcare, and policies that aim to boost mature-age employment, which affects the capacity of grandparents to provide that child care, has gone unnoticed,” it says.
“Grandparents are expected both to participate in the labour force themselves in order to boost their incomes and reduce reliance on the age pension, and to step up as carers for the next generation.”
Researchers Myra Hamilton and Bridget Jenkins said many grandparents provided care for years or decades, travelled hundreds of kilometres to help and equipped their homes for the grandchildren.
“On top of the regular care commitment, they often provided care at short notice, having to change their own plans,” they said. National Seniors chief executive Michael O’Neill said the role grandparents played in propping up the childcare system barely rated a mention in public discourse.
“Just as broken work patterns impact the super balances of younger women, so too they will affect the retirement savings of women who are leaving the workforce early to care for grandkids,” he said.
“The extent to which grandparents are providing day care has significant policy implications beyond early childhood education to mature-age participation and retirement incomes.
“Yet grandparents are barely mentioned in the Productivity Commission’s final report into childcare, are excluded from the Coalition’s in-home nanny pilot and currently receive no direct government support.”
Mr O’Neill said the study confirmed many people cared for grandchildren to relieve cost of living pressures on their adult children and because they loved spending time with the youngsters.
“Financial, lifestyle and health costs such as exhaustion from taking on more than 13 hours of care a week are seen as simply par for the course.”
Grandparents identified community playgroups, flexible work arrangements, government compensation for care and concessions on public transport and recreational activities as potential ways to improve support.
Carings a delight for nanny Lyne
THE Senior’s tours co-ordinator Lyne Hirsch says restructuring her work life to care for her five grandchildren has been a delight.
Lyne, 60, has five grandchildren ranging in age from newborn to 7.
When her daughter Kate, who operates her own hair and beauty salon, had her first child,
Lyne stepped in to help and reduced her work hours from four days to two. Lyne cared for the boys, who are 18 months apart, three days a week from when they were babies.
As they got older, she rearranged her days so she could collect them from school.
She has also enjoyed camping trips with all her grandchildren.
Lyne now does school pick-ups three days a week and cares for grandson Wilson, 5, every Wednesday.
“It’s all been my choice and I don’t regret a bit of it,” she said. “I get a lot of happiness – you’re always having a funny day when you’re with the kids.
“They grow up so quickly and I wanted to have that time with them while I was fit enough.”
Lyne now looks forward to spending time with her first granddaughter, Layla, born in September.
