Emily Dimitriadis loves being a mother, but she admits what some mothers feel guilty confessing to.
Which is that having a "strike day" – or in her case, simply a few hours a week away from child-raising and unpaid domestic work — is important for one's sanity.
"Sometimes it can become a bit exhausting," she says.
"When, you know, [the baby is] crying and she's not feeling well. She's not sleeping. And you don't know why, even though you've tried just about everything under the sun.
When Ms Dimitriadis fell pregnant more than one year ago, she had to quit her full-time job as a lawyer.
"I had a lot of nausea and vomiting to the point where I couldn't work, she says.
"I had to give up. I resigned. It just wasn't good for the company, or for me."
Instead, she worked five-hour weekend shifts at a pharmacy as well as doing voluntary work as a local government councillor.
After she gave birth to Cleo four months ago, she realised it was the right decision to quit the legal profession, as holding three jobs with an infant would have been impossible.
"It [child raising] has been it's a lot of work," she says.
Her husband, electrical engineer Sean Nettleton, is the primary income earner.
Ms Dimitriadis still works occasional weekend shifts at the pharmacy, but her full-time job is unpaid: raising Cleo and doing most of the domestic household chores.
"At the moment, my engineering role pays more — significantly more so," Mr Nettleton says.
"So financially, it makes sense for me to do the bulk of the full-time work."
It's a common story across Australia.
More than half of employed men do no or less than five hours per week of unpaid domestic work
The 2016 Census found that more than half of employed men did nil or less than five hours per week of unpaid domestic work compared with about one-third of employed women.
It found that men were also less likely than women to do 15 hours or more per week of unpaid domestic work (8 per cent of men and 27 per cent of women).
This pattern applied across all hours of paid work, even for those working more than 49 hours per week.
More recent data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) gave some insights into the impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on households across Australia.
The Household Impacts of COVID-19 Survey, conducted between May 14 to 23, 2021, found that women were more likely than men to have spent time on unpaid indoor housework, cooking and the care or supervision of children.
It found that 62 per cent of women spent five or more hours in the week on unpaid indoor housework compared with 35 per cent of men.
Women also took on more caring responsibilities than men, spending five or more hours in the week on unpaid caring or supervision of children (38 per cent of women compared with 28 per cent of men), care of adults (16 per cent compared with 7 per cent) and cooking and baking (64 per cent compared with 37 per cent).
Men were slightly more likely than women to have spent five or more hours on outdoor chores and repairs (20 per cent compared with 18 per cent).
When women leave their full-time paid jobs to have children, it's typically hard to get them back at the same hours, even once the child grows older.
"But it's just unfortunate that the circumstances currently don't allow us to do that."
The $345b value of unpaid work to Australia's economy
Consultancy firm PwC has attempted to measure the value of unpaid childcare to Australia's economy in dollar terms.
It asked the question, "why is it that a mother caring for her children produces no measured economic value, but the same mother hiring others to look after her children does:"
Its 2017 report estimated the value of unpaid activities across 2,214 locations.
It found that if the total economy includes a conservative estimate of the value of unpaid childcare, then, in 2011 terms, it is a $345 billion sector.
"Keep in mind that's only unpaid childcare work. That doesn't include other kinds of unpaid work."
PwC's report found that women account for most unpaid work, such as domestic household chores and other types of caring (including caring for people with disability or older Australians) and volunteer work.
It said women conduct 76 per cent of childcare, 67 per cent of domestic work, 69 per cent of care of adults and 57 per cent of volunteering.
Its report also looked at results by location. In more advantaged areas, couples may substitute unpaid work for paid domestic help.
If a household had 20 hours of unpaid work a week, a woman would conduct 15 hours of it and a man five hours.
However, if they paid someone to take 10 hours of that household work, although the woman would halve her unpaid hours to 7.5 hours, the man would reduce his to 2.5 hours.
If men want to play a greater role in unpaid childcare, do they have to quit their jobs?
Reversing the trend where women do the bulk of unpaid work is a challenge. But some families have managed to.
For Dinah Thomasset and her husband, Shane Hearn, sharing the role more evenly involved many serious conversations and life-changing choices.
Mr Hearn chose to quit his full-time executive role just before the pandemic to spend more time with his family. He now works in a consultancy role from home.
Post the birth of her second child, Ms Thomasset suffered post-natal depression and Mr Hearn decided it was time for him to step in and help with raising their two children, Maeva (4) and Noah (6).
"I think one of the spillages from [the] COVID [pandemic] was that it gave us more time at home and uncovered a new way of working," Mr Hearn says.
"I wanted to support my wife, Dinah. She was carrying a full load … and we had to deal with some health issues.
The couple now share school drop-offs and pick-ups as well as domestic duties.
"We try to be fair with each other, and then with the house chores," Ms Thomasset says.
She says aside from helping develop a better relationship between them and with their kids, it's allowed her to also focus on rebuilding her career.
"It's a beautiful balance, to be able to give your full self to the things that matter to you," she says.
Call for free childcare, flexible work
Ms Thomasset says having free or more heavily subsided childcare and flexible work options would be a game-changer in helping more women get back to work.
She says during the pandemic, "for a few months, we realised how important it is to have access to quality early, early learning".
"It allows the parents to either go back to work or to have some time off with the children because the mum can return to the workforce."
She says employers also are starting to be more flexible in the work options they offer families with kids.
"One of them is to be able to work part-time or flexible time, half work home, half in the office. And I feel like with the pandemic, we realise that it's so easy to work from home."
Mr Nettleton says paid parental leave for dads is another important policy.
He had to dip into his annual leave to take time off when Cleo was born.
He says if paid parental leave was more generous, he would have taken more time off work to help his wife.
"I had to use [a] combination [of] carers leave and annual leave, but not everybody is in the situation where they have that saved up," he says.
"Even then, that was only three weeks."
How one company is using paid parental leave to help dads take on primary carer role
Medibank chief executive and Champions of Change Coalition member David Koczkar says men can take a greater role in unpaid care.
Mr Koczkar currently takes time out of his work to attend to caring for his elderly parents Faleiry and George Koczkar.
He says the company recently introduced a policy to enable both men and women 14 weeks off work to raise children (within two years of having the child).
Medibank, he says, is now considering extending the policy to people who have other caring responsibilities, such as looking after elderly parents or people with a disability.
"It's about what's the policy and how do you normalise it," he said.
"And me sharing that story and saying, 'yeah, it's okay to spend that time. We have a flexible work environment', that normalises it and makes it okay for other people to do it.
"That's really important, because … people want their employer to see them as human beings and see that they're contributing in all aspects of their life, not just at work."
He says unless men and women share unpaid caring roles more equally, more women will not be able to return to work in full-time roles.
"It doesn't allow women to fully participate in the workforce, it doesn't enable them to realise their full potential to gain their independence, and to contribute fully to their work, in their aspirations," he said.
Breaking down cultural barriers
Ms Auster says to reverse the trend of women doing most of the unpaid work, women in government, workplaces and families need to break down structural and cultural barriers.
This includes encouraging male employees to take paid parental leave in the first year of a child's life.
"Part of the reason why I think it is so important is because whatever happens in that first year also sets up the pattern in that family — who's going to do the work for the next 18 to 20 years?
"If you have a gender split — [one] that ends up where the majority of the burden falls on the on the child-bearing partner in that first year — there's every likelihood that that will continue for 20 years."
But she says when both parents can make an equal contribution in that first year, the pattern changes.
Together, they understand what it takes to run a household and to raise children.
And only then, she says, "both partners have the opportunity to mindfully split their time between paid and unpaid work".
