Society's Investment in Children
Sue Richardson, Dec 2000 Australia's 4.7 million children are cared for by 4.5 million parents in 2.5 million families. They require about 17,000 million hours of general adult oversight each year (excluding the time they are asleep). Parents report spending about 2,500 million hours per year on childcare as their main activity (and about three time this much on childcare as an accompaniment to other things they are doing). These hours of care needed by children compare with the approximate 5,500 million hours each year which parents age 25-54 spend at work in their main job. The care of children is a major economic and social activity, as it should be.
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