Between 1985 and 1996, there was a 27% increase in federal assistance to families with children, and assistance to the aged rose by 24% (UNPAC, 2010). Further to this, there was a five-fold increase in childcare places for working w'omen. South Africa’s first postapartheid government followed the Australian example in the mid-1990s, launching the Women’s Budget Initiative (Fleshman, 2002).