Raising children requires careful balancing of caring responsibilities with the demands of employment. This report finds that women are increasingly remaining employed when they take time off to have a baby, demonstrating the uptake of parental leave in recent years.

Key messages:

• Within couple families, there remain gendered patterns of employment, with mothers much more likely than fathers to reduce employment to care for young children. The proportion of mothers employed, though, continues to increase. In 2022, both parents were employed in 71% of couple families with children under 15 years. This compares to 56% in 2000 and 40% in 1979.
• Within couple families, the proportion with both parents working full-time hours is increasing (31% in 2021, up from 22% in 2009), although it remains more common for one parent to be full-time and the other part-time (36% in 2021, this proportion changing little since 2009).
• Mothers are least likely to be employed when they have a child aged under one year (60% of couple mothers and 29% of single mothers with a child aged under one year in 2021). The employment rate then increases when the youngest is one year old (69% of couple mothers and 38% of single mothers with a youngest child aged one year in 2021). Beyond this, the increase in employment is gradual as children grow (up to 81% of couple mothers and 71% of single mothers with a youngest child aged 14 years in 2021).
• While employed, many mothers of under-one year olds are working zero hours. The zero hours group is likely to be largely those on parental leave or other kinds of leave to care for newborns. The proportion employed but away from work in this group has increased significantly over the years (from 5% in 1991 to 32% in 2021). This increasing proportion away from work explains the large increase in employment for mothers of under-one year olds, which almost doubled from 30% to 57% between 1991 and 2021. There was virtually no change in the proportion employed and working some hours in this period.
• Although employment growth continues for both single and couple mothers, single mothers are still less likely to be employed than couple mothers. This difference in employment rates, in 2021, was greatest when the child was aged 0-2 years (a gap of 29%), compared to a gap of 21% for mothers of 3-5 year olds and 12% for mothers of 6-14 year olds.
• Stay-at-home father families are not common, as captured by fathers who are not employed and mothers who are employed. This was 3.8% of families in 2022. Fathers' employment does not vary with the age of the youngest child, unlike mothers' employment, but there are some significant differences in employment rates when couple and single fathers are compared, with single fathers more often in part-time work.
• Same-sex couple parents have work patterns that are similar to opposite-sex couple parents, although there are gendered differences between male and female same-sex couples. Same-sex mother families are more likely to have one parent working part-time compared to same-sex father families, where there is a higher proportion of both parents working full-time.