In the context of high and rising rates of parental employment in Australia, we investigated
whether poor quality jobs (without security, control, flexibility or paid family leave) could pose
a health risk to employed parents' children. We examined the extent to which both mothers'
and fathers' jobs matter, and whether disadvantaged children are more vulnerable than
others. Multiple regression modelling was used to analyse cross-sectional data for 2004
from the Growing Up in Australia study, a nationally representative sample of 4–5 year old …

This article investigates whether poor quality jobs-such as those without security, flexibility or
paid family leave-could pose a health risk to workers' children. The article uses data from the
Longitudinal Study of Australian Children, for 4 to 5 year old children and their employed
parents-2373 mothers and 3026 fathers. The findings show that when parents held poor
quality jobs their children showed more emotional and behavioural difficulties, independent
of income, family structure, work hours, and parent gender. These associations tended to be …