They stmggle to reconcile work and family life because of constraints like access to affordable, good-quality child care facilities and flexible working-time arrangements. How partners share unpaid w'ork is also influenced by factors closely related to the family such as its size, partners’ levels of educational attainment, their relative earnings (potential), and the ways in which they are able to organise their paid working hours. If men do more unpaid housework and parenting work, they free up more time for their partners in the labour market.