Do Australian teenagers contribute to housework

Do Australian teenagers contribute to housework and child care? How do their contributions relate to the time use of their mothers and fathers and the tasks that need to get done? How do young people¿s notions of duty and entitlement affect social divisions of labour, the viability of particular demographic strategies, and theorisations of what counts as ¿work¿ more generally? Large and sophisticated time use surveys, such as those conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) in 1992, 1997 and 2006, provide an invaluable source of quantitative information regarding these issues. In this paper, we present some of the findings they provide about three samples of 15¿19 year olds living in single-family households. These Australian time use surveys have provided material for many excellent studies of the distribution of domestic and caring labour between adults. Research on the distribution of work between parents and teenagers is more difficult to find. As far as we know, this paper represents the first systematic attempt to explore the relevance of Australian time use surveys to studying teenagers as domestic workers and carers over time.