The ABS has compiled time-use data since 1992 to record what Australian women and men do with their time, including multitasking.  This data has told the story of women's unpaid household work compared to men. The Time-Use Survey ceased in 2013 under PM Tony Abbott then was revived in 2020 after lobbying by women's organisations.

Now the ABS wants to reduce its scope, removing multitasking, but conduct it annually.  This will impact it’s effectiveness. In 1997 the survey found that whereas the average time spent on childcare as a main activity was about 2 hours per day, the average when simultaneous activities such as preparing meals and washing clothes were taken into account was closer to 7 hours per day. Survey participants will have to pick one activity, when they are doing 2 or 3 things at once, which will make much of women's unpaid work invisible.  We would no longer have data on the total amount of childcare and other domestic activities we are doing, and our surveys will also no longer be directly comparable to those of other countries. We need to lobby again to retain multitasking data.

The ABS 2023 report on Barriers and Incentives to Labour Force Participation reports that the most common reason women were unavailable to start a job or work more hours was 'Caring for children', while for men it was 'Long-term health condition or disability'.  The most important incentive for women to take on paid work was the "Ability to work part-time hours" with 51% of women rating this as "very important."

The ABS data shows nearly 28% of women with children under 15 who want paid work cited a lack of access to early childhood education and care as a barrier to employment, due to spots being booked out or inaccessible to them geographically. This is evidence of the “motherhood penalty“, the idea that becoming a mum in Australia comes with a high price for women. Last year, Treasury analysis found that women’s earnings fall by an average of 55% in the first 5 years of parenthood, while men’s earnings are generally unaffected when they enter parenthood.

As Georgie Dent, CEO of The Parenthood asserts: In modern Australia it takes two incomes for most families to cover a mortgage or the rent, but it takes affordable early childhood education and outside school hours and care to earn two incomes.