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Speaker 1: It's the Happy Families podcast. It's the podcast for the

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Speaker 1: time poor parent who just wants answers. Now having more

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Speaker 1: time to connect, it's being able to be with them.

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Speaker 1: It's not taking that caregiving and giving it to someone else.

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Speaker 1: And now here's the stars of our show, my mum

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Speaker 1: and dad.

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Speaker 2: Hello, this is doctor Justin Coilson. I'm the founder of

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Speaker 2: Happy Families dot com dot au. During COVID, some fascinating

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Speaker 2: things have happened when it comes to the work life

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Speaker 2: of parents. And with me for a conversation today that

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Speaker 2: I think is going to be just so interesting. Is

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Speaker 2: an associate professor from Brigham Young University whose research is

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Speaker 2: all about the distinct contributions of mothers and fathers in

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Speaker 2: children's development. Associate Professor Janet Erickson is also a research

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Speaker 2: fellow at the Institute for Family Studies in the United States,

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Speaker 2: and just recently she published an article there called the

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Speaker 2: Work Family Reset in post COVID America. And there's enough

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Speaker 2: overlap between what happens in the United States between work

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Speaker 2: and family and balancing our lives and what happens here

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Speaker 2: in Australia that I decided that I was going to

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Speaker 2: invite Associate Professor Ericson on the line. Jennet, thank you

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Speaker 2: so much for joining me for this conversation. It's great

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Speaker 2: to have you on the Happy Families podcast.

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Speaker 1: Great to be on justin thank you.

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Speaker 2: So I've heard a couple of podcast interviews that you've

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Speaker 2: done recently, and one thing has led to another, and

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Speaker 2: I've kind of gone down this rabbit hole of Janet Ericsson,

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Speaker 2: and I love the things that you're talking about. I

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Speaker 2: wonder if you can just tell us a bit about

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Speaker 2: what you found when you were looking at how COVID

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Speaker 2: is affected what families are experiencing in terms of working

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Speaker 2: from home versus working from.

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Speaker 1: Work justin thank you. It's interesting. At the end of

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Speaker 1: kind of the really intense COVID period, there was an

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Speaker 1: article from Meggan McCardle in The Washington Post and she said,

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Speaker 1: sometimes disasters, as horrible as they are, can serve as

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Speaker 1: a kind of reset button. She just commented at what

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Speaker 1: had happened with work and family, and so we followed

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Speaker 1: a per article with our own research looking at what

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Speaker 1: families wanted, and it was really fascinating to see that

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Speaker 1: this reset really looked homeward bound, with more than half

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Speaker 1: of parents who'd had the opportunity right to engage in

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Speaker 1: workplace flexibility coming home during that coronavirus crisis period. More

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Speaker 1: than half of them want to be working at home still,

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Speaker 1: either most of the time or half of the time.

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Speaker 1: And that was mothers and father's and so it really

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Speaker 1: did create the pandemic, just provided this really unique opportunity

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Speaker 1: to think about the kind of future we want, what

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Speaker 1: we really see as a good work family balanced situation

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Speaker 1: that we maybe didn't think was even possible. I clear

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Speaker 1: back in two thousand and five, I did some research

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Speaker 1: with a national institution that was looking at a nationally

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Speaker 1: represents sample of mothers, trying to get a sense of

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Speaker 1: how motherhood was going. And one question we asked was

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Speaker 1: what is your cur work situation and what is your

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Speaker 1: ideal work situation? And we had a list of options,

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Speaker 1: and one of those options in the ideal work situation

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Speaker 1: was work for pay from home. And when we looked

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Speaker 1: at the percentages, only one percent of mothers were actually

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Speaker 1: working for pay from home in two thousand and five,

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Speaker 1: but thirty percent chose that as their ideal option. So

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Speaker 1: we have this we have this massive gap between what

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Speaker 1: people were doing and what they wanted to be doing

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Speaker 1: with that one feature showing up. And so it's so

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Speaker 1: remarkable that during the workplace flexibility created during the coronavirus,

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Speaker 1: to all of a sudden you had all these mothers

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Speaker 1: being able to work from home and fathers as well.

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Speaker 1: And then at the end we see what do you

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Speaker 1: want and they're all saying, you know, the majority are

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Speaker 1: saying that's what we see as best.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think I think the Australian experience is quite similar.

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Speaker 2: I know I don't have any hot evidence, but anecdotal evidence.

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Speaker 2: People keep on saying this is great so long as

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Speaker 2: they've got spaces, as long as the kids aren't crashing

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Speaker 2: into their zoom meetings all the time. The overwhelming response

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Speaker 2: from people is we don't have to commute, we save costs,

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Speaker 2: we get to be with our families more, we've got

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Speaker 2: the flexibility to step in and out of the office,

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Speaker 2: whether it's the spare bedroom or the former rumpus room.

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Speaker 2: Like people are responding really really well to it in

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Speaker 2: Australia as well, and at the moment there's an increasing

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Speaker 2: push to get people back to the office and there's

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Speaker 2: quite a lot of resistance to that from both mums

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Speaker 2: and dads.

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Speaker 1: So interesting. I'm glad you mentioned the commute because along

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Speaker 1: with that data, there was an other day that came

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Speaker 1: out about women just experiencing more capacity for self care

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Speaker 1: not having to do that commute. There was it freed

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Speaker 1: out time for things that they had not had time before,

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Speaker 1: and just it was associated with just better well being, happiness,

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Speaker 1: better well being. The other piece that came out was

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Speaker 1: that when we talked to about what do they want

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Speaker 1: in terms of childcare situations, all of a sudden they

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Speaker 1: could have this option that nobody thought about being possible for,

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Speaker 1: and that's both parents working flexible hours and sharing childcare

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Speaker 1: so you're not taking your children to childcare, you're actually

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Speaker 1: navigating that together at home. And that was the high

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Speaker 1: that was the most frequently preferred option of our list,

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Speaker 1: where you saw, on the other hand, full time center

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Speaker 1: based childcare, where you're taking your children to a center

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Speaker 1: based childcare, was only chosen by eleven percent of parents.

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Speaker 1: So really you saw this, Oh my goodness, we can

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Speaker 1: do something we did not ever think was possible before,

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Speaker 1: and that's husband and wife, mother and father can actually

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Speaker 1: work on caring for those children together by having their

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Speaker 1: work place being more flexible. Well, it really did open

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Speaker 1: up a new way of thinking about things.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, fascinating. I'm curious. It seems like this is an

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Speaker 2: I have awhelmingly positive response to this. Are there any negatives?

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Speaker 2: Are any families looking at this situation filling in this

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Speaker 2: survey daughter and saying, actually, I really need to get

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Speaker 2: back to the office. It's driving me crazy being at

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Speaker 2: home with kids.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it was. You were right. It was not all parents, right,

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Speaker 1: it's fifty three percent of them overall men and close

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Speaker 1: to that women. Sixty five percent of college educated dads.

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Speaker 1: So more of the college educated dads wanted to work

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Speaker 1: from home than not college educated fathers, and there were

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Speaker 1: some who did want to go back to the workplace.

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Speaker 1: I think what's interesting is in light of that is

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Speaker 1: the question when all these mothers came home and children

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Speaker 1: are home, and you would get this anecdotal report on

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Speaker 1: now women are back in that gender unequal situation where

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Speaker 1: they're doing all the care and they're trying to work,

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Speaker 1: and where in the world is the dad or where

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Speaker 1: is the partner in that? But in fact, it actually

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Speaker 1: opened up more possibility for sharing responsibilities between husbands and wives,

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Speaker 1: mothers and fathers because dads also wanted to be at home.

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Speaker 1: So rather than entrenching gender inequality that we feared that

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Speaker 1: this going home might do, it opened up the possibility

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Speaker 1: for sharing responsibilities. Now having said that, we have more

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Speaker 1: moms saying they want that shared care situation where both

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Speaker 1: mother and fathers share childcare than fathers are saying. So

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Speaker 1: we're still seeing a little lag I think there in

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Speaker 1: terms of men and women seeing their responsibility that way

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Speaker 1: or how they want to work that out a little

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Speaker 1: bit differently, with more women saying yes, this shared care

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Speaker 1: is what we want, with mother and father both engaged

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Speaker 1: and father's more fathers saying that, but not at the

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Speaker 1: same rate as mothers are saying that.

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Speaker 2: Fascinating. So after the break, we're going to find out

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Speaker 2: I dig a little deeper into why moms might want

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Speaker 2: to be more egalitarian and have more shared care and

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Speaker 2: dad's resisting that. I've got a feeling that I know

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Speaker 2: exactly why that will be, but I want to pick

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Speaker 2: the brains of the expert here. Plus, we're going to

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Speaker 2: find out a bit more about preferences around work. What

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Speaker 2: do mums and dads actually want on average when it

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Speaker 2: comes to being at home versus working, even if work

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Speaker 2: is from home. It's the Happy Families Podcast.

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Speaker 3: Imagine a home where discipline got results without anyone having

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Speaker 3: to feel bad or in trouble. The do's and don'ts

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Speaker 3: of Disciplined as a webinar to help parents set limits

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Speaker 3: with love, compassion and humanity. Find it now at happy

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Speaker 3: families dot com dot au slash shop.

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Speaker 2: It's the Happy Families Podcast, the podcast for the time

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Speaker 2: poor parent who just wants answers. Now it's doctor Justin Colson.

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Speaker 2: I'm hanging out today with Associate Professor Jenet Erickson, a

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Speaker 2: researcher from Brigham Young University in the United States, and

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Speaker 2: we're talking about issues around COVID working from home and

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Speaker 2: the gendered division of labor when it comes to who's

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Speaker 2: bringing in the bacon, who's working, who's looking after the kids,

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Speaker 2: and all that kind of thing. Jennet, we were just

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Speaker 2: discussing this issue of mums wanting more shared care with

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Speaker 2: their husbands, but dad's being a little bit more resistant

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Speaker 2: to it, even though both can now work from home

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Speaker 2: in this post COVID environment. Can you tell me why

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Speaker 2: do you think it is that Dad's a little more reluctant,

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Speaker 2: a little more resistant to the idea of having a

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Speaker 2: weightier level of involvement in sharing the care of the kids.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, that's just that's really interesting. I do

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Speaker 1: think there's been change over time. We can see that

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Speaker 1: with fathers doing much more care work than say in

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Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties nineteen sixties, that they're more involved at home,

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Speaker 1: but still mothers are doing more of that kind of

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Speaker 1: care work. So I'm going to say two things, one

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Speaker 1: being when we look at what men women prefer, you

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Speaker 1: will consistently see, even though we've seen a lot of

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Speaker 1: change in the percentage of mothers working, mothers who have

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Speaker 1: young children overwhelmingly do not prefer full time employment. It's

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Speaker 1: not what they see as ideal. When they have children

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Speaker 1: zero to five. In particular, they really do want to

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Speaker 1: be able to pry poritize care for those children.

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Speaker 2: So what sort of percentage are we talking there? Because

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Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways that's a pretty provocative thing

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Speaker 2: to say. We leave in twenty twenty two and everybody's

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Speaker 2: saying it equal rots on that sort of thing. But

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Speaker 2: you're saying that the survey data shows moms specifically as

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Speaker 2: saying when my kids are young, I don't want to

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Speaker 2: be in full time work. Yes, well, what's right, what's

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Speaker 2: the percentage is that it's.

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Speaker 1: Probably sixty five percent. You get different different numbers, right,

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Speaker 1: but they're right around that range that you don't that

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Speaker 1: it's it's you know, as sixty five percent that do

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Speaker 1: not prefer full time employment during that period of time

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Speaker 1: with young children. And now now having said that, many

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Speaker 1: of them want part time work and they would see

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Speaker 1: as ideal work that's meaningful, that you know, you can

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Speaker 1: grow in and that you get paid it right in

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Speaker 1: an appropriate way for But they don't want to bear

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Speaker 1: the responsibility of primarily being the provider for their children

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Speaker 1: and families. And that's just that just has been very

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Speaker 1: consistent over time, and we saw that in this data

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Speaker 1: as well. It showed up again here mothers with young children,

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Speaker 1: they want to be able to prioritize care for their children.

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Speaker 1: They are interested in work, They don't want to be

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Speaker 1: the primary provider in general. Now you see men on

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Speaker 1: the flip, they do tend to really prioritize work when

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Speaker 1: they have young children. They do prefer being the primary provider,

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Speaker 1: and that's just been very consistent as well. So It's

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Speaker 1: interesting that you see they want to come home, they

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Speaker 1: want to maintain primary providing role, right, but they also

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Speaker 1: want to get involved in caregiving. And I think women saw, look,

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Speaker 1: have this could work out better than me taking the

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Speaker 1: kids to daycare. You're home and we can work this

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Speaker 1: out where we're we're both involved in their care, even

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Speaker 1: if I'm doing more of it than you're doing. But

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Speaker 1: it's a family thing together, right, It's not somebody else

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Speaker 1: doing it.

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Speaker 2: Jennet. Something that I found fascinating. I can't remember the

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Speaker 2: research study. I can't remember many of the details around it.

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Speaker 2: But when we're talking about these complimentary roles, we're talking

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Speaker 2: about the work life balance. I read something about the

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Speaker 2: more egalitarian than the most that women have choice in

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Speaker 2: terms of what they do in terms of work versus family,

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Speaker 2: the more likely it is that they're going to choose family,

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Speaker 2: even though they've gotten more choice. I might be making

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Speaker 2: a miss of that data that research, and you able

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Speaker 2: to shed some lot on that and mightbe set me straight.

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Speaker 1: This is such fascinating data. There's two pieces maybe to cover.

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Speaker 1: One is you're right in Nordic countries Norway, Sweden, Finland,

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Speaker 1: right where we might say there's a lot of effort

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Speaker 1: to make egalitarian access to the workplace, and that one

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Speaker 1: is not prioritizing caregiving over professional work. Right, there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of there's also a lot of focus on family time.

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Speaker 1: But what you see is women still choosing caregiving types

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Speaker 1: of professions more than men, and you see them choosing

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Speaker 1: not to engage in kind of high demand full time

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Speaker 1: professions so that they can prioritize family. And so you'll

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Speaker 1: see men choosing to work more with objects and things

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Speaker 1: and women choosing to work more with people and children,

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Speaker 1: and you'll kind of see that that shaping shaking out

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Speaker 1: even though they're a really strong egalitarian focus. So that's

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Speaker 1: very important. The other piece of that is tasks. So

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Speaker 1: we just have really recent data looking at preferences around

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Speaker 1: tasks at home, and it shows up the same way.

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Speaker 1: You'll have very egalitarian couples saying, right, we share all

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Speaker 1: the same things, we do all the same things. But

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Speaker 1: when you ask them to rank what kind of task

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Speaker 1: they prefer, you see women overwhelmingly choosing caregiving kinds of tasks,

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Speaker 1: men choosing yard work, garage and working with the things

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Speaker 1: of the house. And yet they'll say we are fully egalitarian, right,

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Speaker 1: We do all the same kinds of things, and yet

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Speaker 1: their preferences suggest a different orientation. And it's really really

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Speaker 1: remarkable how overwhelmingly they make those preferences.

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Speaker 2: We've definitely got to continue this conversation, but in wrapping

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Speaker 2: up today and we'll get you back again to talk

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Speaker 2: more about this brain science and the complementary roles of

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Speaker 2: moms and dads. I think it's fascinating and also how

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Speaker 2: working it feeds with that in some ways. But let's

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Speaker 2: wrap this up with a quick question. I know that

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Speaker 2: as a researcher, what you're mainly doing is looking at

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Speaker 2: what has happened and extrapolating from there and considering the data.

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Speaker 2: I'm curious about a prediction that you might make as

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Speaker 2: you look at the way people are responding to what

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Speaker 2: COVID has done to the workplace, what COVID has done

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Speaker 2: to the opportunities to work from home, these preferences that

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Speaker 2: are coming out, What do you think what do you

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Speaker 2: foresee over the next couple of years in relation to

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Speaker 2: work life balance, in relation to working from home and

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Speaker 2: kids and families. What do you think's going to happen?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, great question. I just prior to COVID. It's fascinating.

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Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen comes out this article about workism, and the

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Speaker 1: author at the Atlantic just said, we have this, we

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Speaker 1: have this whole new religion around work where identity is

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Speaker 1: bound up in work. And you see adults seeing this

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Speaker 1: is my meaning, this is my purpose, and all of

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Speaker 1: this workplace effort to create like a home away from home,

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Speaker 1: right where everything's there at the workplace. And it's fascinating

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Speaker 1: because in comes COVID interrupting that, and you see people

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Speaker 1: all of a sudden they're valuing in a different way

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Speaker 1: what they could do in the presence of their family

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Speaker 1: members with you know, when they're home with children. And

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Speaker 1: and so I think the pressures justin are to they

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Speaker 1: are a workist pressure, right to define ourselves by our

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Speaker 1: work and to make policies that make a workplace focused

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Speaker 1: as opposed to family friendly work policies. Rights it's making

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Speaker 1: your family work friendly instead of making the workplace family friendly.

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Speaker 1: And so there I think there's going to be strong

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Speaker 1: pressure still to orient ourselves around work. But there's a

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Speaker 1: taste for what really really fills me up, you know,

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Speaker 1: as a person, and that's having more time to connect.

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Speaker 1: It's being able to be with them. It's not taking

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Speaker 1: that caregiving and giving it to someone else. So you

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Speaker 1: think you see things like having dinner consistently. It's fascinating, right,

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Speaker 1: But if people can just have dinner consistently, even if

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Speaker 1: they go back to work, it reduces the stress between

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Speaker 1: work and family life. And it could be as brief

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Speaker 1: as twenty minutes. But like, just having that consistent time

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Speaker 1: that is protected for families to have really is an

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Speaker 1: important part of well being. And we've got a taste

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Speaker 1: of it. We have to remember the taste of it, right,

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Speaker 1: because the pressures are to go back to a workist orientation.

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Speaker 1: But I also think we're not going to go back.

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Speaker 1: My husband works from home permanently now, and there's a

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Speaker 1: lot of us who are saying that, and they do

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Speaker 1: it because they want to do it, and it was

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Speaker 1: made possible through COVID, And so we're going to see

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Speaker 1: that continued shift from workplace to more being done at

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Speaker 1: home in the presence of children and family. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: love that.

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Speaker 2: I think that that's a fascinating prediction and also a

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Speaker 2: really nice take home message when I look at what

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Speaker 2: COVID has done. I used to catch like one hundred

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Speaker 2: and twenty flights a year. I was going for I'm

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Speaker 2: home at least one hundred plus nights per year, and

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Speaker 2: during COVID, I haven't had to travel more than a

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Speaker 2: couple of times a year, and it's been heaven. I

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Speaker 2: don't want that to change. Associate Professor Janet Erickson, thanks

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Speaker 2: for joining me on the podcast for this amazing conversation.

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Speaker 2: Can't wait to have you back.

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Speaker 1: Thanks Justin.

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Speaker 2: That is Associate Professor Janet Erickson from Brigham Young University,

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Speaker 2: also a research fellow at the Institute for Family Studies,

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Speaker 2: talking about how COVID has changed work life balance, what

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Speaker 2: parents really want when it comes to work and life,

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Speaker 2: and a really nice take home message about making sure

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Speaker 2: that we have that dedicated family time no matter how

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Speaker 2: chaotic life gets. The Happy Family's podcast is produced by

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Speaker 2: Justin Ruland from Bridge Media, with Craig Bruce, our executive producer.

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Speaker 2: If you'd like more info about making your family happier,

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Speaker 2: you can visit us on Facebook at doctor Justin Colson's

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Speaker 2: Happy Families or Happy Families dot com dot au.