Background: What Does the Data Tell Us?

Background: What Does the Data Tell Us?

Organizations like the ILO and WBL already collect global data on ….

 

Definition:  The WBL Index is ...

Worldwide, parents who need and/or want to work must find ways to reconcile their parenting and professional responsibilities. This is especially true for women in many countries, who face numerous barriers to working outside the home. The International Labor Organization (ILO)’s ‘Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women’ prohibits dismissal on the grounds of maternity or pregnancy and ensures rights to maternity leave or comparable social benefits, and all countries from South Asia are party to this international treaty. Yet in all South Asian countries, patriarchal values and social norms keep gender inequalities and discrimination alive at both the professional and personal lives of many women and girls.

According to the World Bank’s Women, the Business and Law[1] study, which tracks legal progress toward gender equality, laws related to equal treatment in the workplace have been adopted by most countries over the past 50 years. However, laws related to workplace discrimination, especially connected to parenthood, prohibiting dismissal of pregnant workers (Figure 3), are among the most unequal of the 35 measures tracked, including in South Asia. The WBL reports a WBL Index, which is based on the countries’ formal laws and regulations that have a bearing on women’s economic participation, and tracks how laws affect women at different stages in their working lives. Countries with a score of 100 have ensured equal legal standing to men and women on all the eight indicators of the index. Figure 4 shows that South Asia is a varied place as measured by the WBL index.

One of the most significant contributors to unequal workforce participation is the disproportionate burden of eldercare and childcare on women, which leaves them little time or ability to work outside the home.

For instance, a 2018 publication[1] by the International Labor Organization (ILO) entitled “Care Work and Care Jobs: For the future of Decent Work” confirmed that women, globally, performed 3 times more unpaid care work, including caring for children and inactive members of the family.

The same report further stated, “Across regions and income groups, when both work for pay or profit and unpaid care work are accounted together, the working day is on average longer for women (7 hours and 28 minutes) than it is for men (6 hours and 44 minutes). This makes women consistently time poorer than men, even after adjusting for hours of employment." The share of unpaid care work done by women in India may be a whopping 13 times higher than that of men[2], suggests the consulting firm Dalberg, including an estimated 30 percent increase as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Research by UNICEF[3] revealed that 606 million working-age women in 2018 identified themselves as being unable to work due to childcare responsibilities, compared to only 41 million men. The publication recognized that childcare policies are ‘critical’ to enhancing women’s labor force participation and the burden of unpaid care work has had major implications for women’s employment and income opportunities. The unequal distribution of care, because it is both time-consuming and resource-intensive, is holding back women and girls from advancing in other areas of their lives. The imbalance is becoming more acute, as women continue to enter the labor market and to migrate in increasing numbers.[4]

Key Findings from existing Literature

Challenges for working parents largely stem from the challenge of obtaining work/life balance. Based upon our literature review, we’ve grouped the stressors into three basic categories: 1) societal and familial pressures regarding work/childrearing and gender roles; 2) childcare and lactation issues that can make it difficult to balance work and childrearing; and 3) unsupportive work environments that stigmatize or present barriers to working parents, especially mothers. Both men and women are impacted by these stressors, but women are disproportionately affected by the challenges and burdens of maternity and childcare.

There are significant data gaps in the literature on the connections between maternity/parenthood and employment at the regional, sectoral and institutional levels, and there is even less data on the efficacy of various approaches to overcome problems. Generally speaking, however, there is agreement on the key challenges, though the applicability of any of these to any specific setting will vary. Below is a summary of the key takeaways:

1) Societal/Cultural Traditions and Gender Stereotypes

In South Asian cultures, family obligation and loyalty, as well as self-sacrifice and obedience toward one’s elders, are paramount[5]. While a close-knit family structure that often includes members spanning several generations can make extra sets of hands available for childcare, it can also stifle women’s’ willingness and ability to delegate childcare in order to pursue career ambitions.

The pressure on working women to balance the societal expectations of childcare, their own guilt and anxiety about having to leave their child or children with other caregivers and the pressures from increasingly competitive professional environments is immense.[6] This ‘work-family guilt,’ as one research article[7] published in the Journal of Vocational Behavior points out, is responsible for decreasing mothers‘ work aspirations, limiting their leisure time and reducing their happiness.

Ashoka University’s Genpact Centre for Women’s Leadership (GCWL) in India released a qualitative study[8] on lived experiences of maternity and career among women and their return to the workforce across sectors titled “Predicament of Returning Mothers” in 2018. Women interviewed for the research explained that if they chose to rejoin work after childbirth, they felt guilty of putting themselves before their child and family. This guilt was amplified by the lack of childcare options and long present cultural conditioning. They added that husbands often expected women to be homemakers before being professionals, neither helping with household chores nor childcare nor confronting their in-laws in times of a tussle. Rather, the men felt that it was the woman’s responsibility to compromise and adjust. The women clarified that since their husbands typically earned more than them, the men found no reason to compromise.

Key Findings: The pressure on working women to balance the societal expectations of childcare, their own guilt and anxiety about having to leave their child or children with other caregivers and the pressures from increasingly competitive professional environments is immense. · Cultural and/or religious restrictions can significantly limit a mother’s options to return to work or start working after childbirth Family members, even in extended families, may not be willing to adjust their schedules to help the parents, especially mothers, because childcare is considered the “mother's responsibility”

2) Childcare Issues

Childcare is integral to the development of children and a major concern for mothers who want to continue their careers after childbirth. In South Asia, especially in families that are poor and vulnerable, much of the responsibility for childcare falls on the mother. Traditional sources of childcare from close or extended family members are becoming less available as both parents are usually in paid employment and as families become more dispersed, particularly when employees and their children move away from their place of birth in search of work.[1]

A working paper[1] by the World Bank entitled "The Motherhood Penalty and Female Employment in Urban India” states that ‘Having a young child in the home depresses mothers' employment, an inverse relationship that has intensified over time. These results show that the care of young children is an increasingly important issue in women's employment decisions, in a context where formal childcare is practically nonexistent.’