This research paper concentrates on one of the structural factors which both reinforces and reproduces women’s marginal position within the labour market – their disproportionate responsibility for unpaid child care as compared to men. Available quantitative data, derived mainly from time-use surveys, consistently shows that it is women rather than men who shoulder the main responsibility for child care, and that they are likely to earn less than men when participating in income earning work. Unpaid care work restricts and/or otherwise alters the time that women can spend on income-earning activities in a manner that negatively impacts on their earning ability. It can also more indirectly impact on earnings through its relationship to labour market segmentation, with women disproportionately concentrated in the lower-paid “caring” professions, including paid child care workers.