carers allowance is not impacted in any way by returning to work

if you don't have child care fees (so have rellos that can look after kidlets) it works out ok - but if you factor in child care fees, often you aren't better off until your kids start school. you have to factor in tax, travel, child care etc

things that will impact how much you "lose"

firstly - working credits - for each fortnight that you've not worked since your child was born, you've accrued working credits (to a maximum of 1000) - with these, when you DO return to work, once you hit the threshold for reducing payment due to earnings. for each dollar over that threshold, one working credit will be used, until you run out of working credits. this allows you to have a "transition" period where your earnings don't impact your payment

when your working credits are gone, your income starts affecting your payment. when you hit the threshold (i think it's around 150 if you only have one child, but it's 4am and i'm too tired to look it up!), your payment starts being impacted by 40c for every dollar over that threshold. when it hits the next threshold (which i can't recall sorry - haven't worked in months lol) - it then takes 60c in the dollar. IF you earn enough to be getting no payment at all (which is full time hours at most places) - you have six fortnights in a row where you income has to be too high to get payment before you are considered to be full time employed and the payment stopped. in that six fortnights you keep your pension card and full ftba etc

this is for parenting single only - parenting partnered is different

PPS is a payment you can remain on until your youngest child is 16 - BUT, once that child turns six, it becomes an "activity tested" payment. as the primary carer for a young child, you are not expected to return to work full time when they turn six, but you are expected to engage in activity to bring you back into the workforce and ultimately make you more employable. in the past, you were left until your youngest was sixteen, put on newstart and expected to find your way. it was shown that this wasn't working (well DUH!) and people had been out of the workforce too long so were simply not employable due to no current skills - a lot changes in sixteen years! so now, when your youngest is six, you're expected to start building your skills again. this may be through part time work, part time study, part time training, starting your own business (though there are expectations of how much you need to be earning per hour put in, or it's not considered a viable business - and you need to be doing a minimum number of hours each week)

HTH