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Stay at home parents’ economy values at over $22 billion annually.
Stay at home labour sector 50% larger than the size of the volunteering sector**
- Average working week at 43.1 hours is 4 hours longer than paid full-time workers
- The vast majority of this is not financially protected but should be covered
A study*** by Australia’s leading specialist life insurer, TAL, values the stay at home parents’ economy at over $22 billion annually based on their hours worked and using the minimum wage of $16.37 per hour. For context, this figure is almost twice the value that volunteering contributes to the Australian economy ($14.6 billion)**.
According to TAL the vast majority of the stay at home workforce has no financial protection in the event injury, accident or illness prevented them from carrying out their vital domestic duties.
TAL Life CEO Brett Clark: “We all know how much stay at home parents do for the family but this study enables us to put a dollar value on the domestic economy.
“We also know that women account for most of the stay at home workforce and either do not have financial protection from life insurance or have very little. We need to redress this problem and one initiative TAL takes is to sponsor the Female Excellence in Advice Award every year. The award aims to increase female participation in the financial advice profession which in turn can help increase financial wealth and protection for women.”
Most people do not realise that a stay at home parent can be insured, giving them financial support in the unfortunate event that that parent is not able to do all the domestic work they usually do on a daily basis.
Winner of the 2012 Female Excellence in Advice Award Christine Hornery said: “I have seen cases where life insurance has prevented financial stress and hardship for families where a stay at home parent has had protection at a time of illness. Most people don’t realise protection applies to both working and non-working parents. Non-working parents, often mums, simply do not consider and are usually overlooked when it comes to wealth planning and protection.”
The research found that the average working week for a stay at home parent at 43.1 hours is actually 11% longer than the average hours worked by paid full-time employees at 38.8 hours****. This would equate to an annual salary of $36,688 based on the minimum wage and which would need to be covered if the stay at home parent was unable to do their usual domestic duties.
The survey found that each week activities include cooking for an estimated 8 hours and 36 minutes, washing and ironing clothes for 5 hours and 18 minutes, cleaning for 14 hours and 6 minutes and spending 3 hours and 24 minutes walking, washing and caring for four legged family members.
Table 1: Hourly breakdown of the stay at home working week
| Duties of stay at home mums | Hours spent |
| Chauffeuring | 4.1 |
| Shopping for your family food, clothing etc. | 4.2 |
| Washing or ironing | 5.3 |
| Caring for / walking any family pets | 3.4 |
| Cooking for the family | 8.6 |
| Cleaning inside the house (including cleaning the bathroom, dusting, vacuuming or mopping floors etc.) | 7.0 |
| Cleaning outside the house | 2.3 |
| Other types of cleaning or tidying up (including cleaning up after cooking, making beds etc.) | 4.8 |
| Gardening | 1.9 |
| Other household chores (such as cleaning the car) | 1.5 |
| TOTAL | 43.1 |
Mr Clark concluded, “By putting a value on the domestic work of stay at home parents we are hoping to show how extensive their role is, both in terms of the volume of work they do and the cost of finding assistance to help out if they are unable to carry on with their domestic chores.”
“At TAL, our aim is to help Australian families by taking some of the financial pressure off in difficult times which provides peace of mind in both good times and when help is needed.”
TAL, in conjunction with the Association of Financial Advisers (AFA) is sponsoring the 2013 Female Excellence in Advice Awards. The aim of the annual Award is to acknowledge outstanding achievements in financial advice, support greater participation by women in leadership roles in financial services, and to encourage more women to enter the financial advice profession.
Female advisers may self-nominate or be nominated by 31 July 2013 by visiting http://www.afafemaleadvice.com/index.html. The 2013 winner will be announced at the AFA National Conference on 15 October 2013, and will receive a hand crafted trophy, a special certificate and a full scholarship to complete an executive leadership course at the Macquarie School of Management (MGSM) in Sydney.
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* $22 billion is calculated using the following: 594,000 households with a stay at home parent x $16.37 x 43.1 hours x 52 weeks
– 594,000 sourced from ABS Labour Force Survey, Families Data
– Minimum wage sourced from Fair Work Ombudsman http://www.fairwork.gov.au/pay/national-minimum-wage/Pages/default.aspx
** The Australian Government Office of the Not For Profit Sector says Australians volunteering each year contributes more than $14.6 billion in unpaid workhttp://www.notforprofit.gov.au/volunteering.
*** This Newspoll study was conducted online among 208 females aged 18-64 who do not work and are parent of a child of any age from a total sample of 394 women.
****Australian Bureau of Statistics – http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/[email protected]/mf/6104.0
