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Helping families balance it all

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Today, with many children being raised by a single parent or two parents working outside the home, most families take advantage of parental leave and child care programs to help them balance their work and family obligations.

Changes in the Employment Insurance Act that took effect in 2001 gave parents up to one year of paid leave to take care of their children, allowing parents to spend more time with their children during the first year of their lives. Indeed, the proportion of new mothers returning to work after about a year off jumped from 8% in 2000 to 47% in 2001. Men’s participation in the program also increased: in 2001, 10% of fathers took leave from work to take care of a new baby, three times as many as in 2000.

Roughly 1 in 10 women took no time, or only one or two months, off work after childbirth. The majority of these early returnees were self-employed or employees without maternity or parental leave benefits.

Chart: Parental leave, womenThe proportion of pre-schoolers in child care programs has grown steadily. In 2002/2003, 54% of children aged six months to five years were in some kind of child care. In 1994/1995, this proportion was 42%.

Daycare centres were more popular with lone-parent households. In contrast, children from households with two parents working or in school were much more likely to be cared for by a non-relative. However, in 2000/2001, the proportion of such children was down from levels in 1994/1995.

Children from households with a single parent who is employed or in school spent about one hour more each day with their principal caregiver than children with two parents in the same situation.