Work and Family (Im)Balance: findings from OECD countries

 

Did you know that the OECD has just released a report examining the differences between OECD countries in terms of the policies they offer to address work and family life balance? Well, they have. Voila – I present to you the Babies and Bosses Reconciling Work and Family Life report.  Why does the OECD think governments will give a crap about your work and family dilemmas.. oh because family-friendly policies help ensure a future labour supply (without which we won’t have economic growth and if we don’t have economic growth capitalists will be broken hearted and die); and these policies also promote equity between men and women, and across income levels; and they also enhance child development (and incidentally these factors all contribute to economic growth too in case you don’t care about feminism or smart children on their own merits).  

Among other things the report considers the interrelationship between labour force participation (ie. working and trying to find work in all its paid forms) and fertility trends. Sometimes when this relationship is examined it is reduced to simplistic conclusions like – women can’t have it all, and the feminists tricked me into having a career instead of a baby, but in reality the relationship between work and baby making is far more complex as we all know. Babies and Bosses also looks at the hidden implications of tax/benefit policies, leave arrangements, childcare and after-school care, and various other workplace practices for the behaviour of families.  

You might not get around to reading the whole report so here are some significant comments it makes.

There is a declining birth rate among OECD countries which threatens not only the future labour supply but also the financial sustainability of social protection systems. You know, like how are we young ones going to pay for that big old baby boomer generation when they find out that all their mid-life crisis jogging has fucked their knees up?

The report notes that mostly countries are failing to address the fundamental problems behind declining fertility rates. For too long we’ve left it up to individual employers and employees to figure out for themselves that work needs to be more family-friendly in order to keep parents working, and to keep people being able to and wanting to become parents. Given it hasn’t happened on its own the OECD argues that it is high fucking time governments intervened to ensure the obstacles to balancing work and family are removed.

Like what, you say?

Babies and Bosses calls for a consideration of strengthening the financial incentives for parents to work. That essentially means tax/benefit systems providing financial incentives for parents working, including both partnered and single parents. You can’t just want the labour of parents, you have to make the work sphere possible for parents. So, it is no good throwing Welcome Back to Work parties for parents if you don’t also provide appropriate support services to assist them working, like hmm… adequate fucking childcare (particularly for single parents who don’t have the same back-up as coupled parents).  

What else does the OECD report say? You’d never guess I’m sure, but having children is reducing female labour participation and not male employment rates. What is the problem with this? I intend to explore the topic of financial insecurity and its gender inequalities in much greater depth in an upcoming post (when I finish reading this controversial book), but in a nutshell this has meant the persistence of gender pay differences, not only in the immediate term when children are very young but in the long term when women try to progress their careers. Policies which attempt to address this kind of gender inequity have been lacking in OECD countries. I know, again, you’d never have guessed would you?

Is the OECD suggesting feminist world domination? Relax, my conservative lurkers, it is nothing like that. We’re talking leave schemes which allow parents (of both genders) choice in how they return to work (ie. the 60 hour working week is not a one size fits all). And childcare options throughout childhood, not just covering the baby stage (ie. yes, what about the pre-school and after-school care years? And for that matter, what about aged care too for women with the additional burden of caring for elderly parents?). Need I also say that we’re not talking about the daycare factories that give Steven Biddulph the willies, we’re talking appropriate and quality childcare?

Now here’s where most of the OECD countries get it all wrong. They dabble in some of these policies, but nothing comprehensively, and then they test them and say look, this has done nothing for the falling fertility rate and the stubbornly wide gender wage gaps . These policies are offered in isolation, and surprise, surprise they do not as individual policies impact greatly on the overall work and family balance problems that parents face. Like paid maternity leave for instance, what impact will this have on women’s participation in the labour force in the long term if it is not also followed up by adequate high quality childcare services?

Babies and Bosses notes the importance of providing a continuum of support, that is, policies need to be integrated if they are to address the problems of work and family balance and falling fertility rates. Some of these policies are expensive (and some really are not), but remember we’re talking about protecting future labour supply and economic growth, in addition to improving the shape of our future society, some worthy (and lucrative) goals so you know, weigh it up fiscal conservatives.

Follow this link to see where your country sits on the comparisons.