Arabic version: الآباء يواجهون فجوة زمنية سنوية قدرها 814 ساعة

According to ABC News, Australian families are navigating work, school and care systems that were designed for another era, leaving many working parents to bridge major gaps between employment hours and children’s needs.

For two parents working full-time with primary school-aged children, the difference between a typical workday and a school day can amount to 7.5 hours each week, or about 300 hours across a 40-week school year. Kate Harrison Brennan, director of the Sydney Policy Lab at The University of Sydney, said the school pick-up deadline creates a daily “cliff” for parents.

The calculations also include an average 3.8 hours a week spent commuting, about 1.7 hours for school drop-off and pick-up, and a conservative hour for extracurricular activities. School holidays add further pressure: workers typically receive four weeks of annual leave while children have 12 weeks of school holidays, alongside pupil-free or curriculum days.

ABC News estimated that parents in this situation need to find at least 814 hours each year, equivalent to about 34 full days. The estimate does not include cooking, cleaning, laundry, planning, medical appointments, school events, homework or the needs of single-parent families and children with additional needs.

Between 1990 and 2025, the share of two-parent families where both partners worked increased from 55 per cent to 71-73 per cent, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data cited by ABC News. Georgie Dent, chief executive of The Parenthood, said the gap between care, school and work hours was a “structural tax” that parents, most often mothers, pay each day.