Family-friendly measures

In her interview with The Times (March 6), Minister Dolores Cristina touched on two very crucial points in the debate surrounding the government's efforts to increase women's participation in the labour force: the risk of putting all women in the same basket and that of making work pay.

Inactive women with the potential to work represent a wasted economic resource, especially so in a country that relies heavily on human capital. It is certainly not encouraging to hear working mothers labelled as "part-time" mothers, since motherhood is not an income-generating activity that is measured by the number of hours dedicated to the job. We do not hear of one-tenth-time fathers simply because these men are working 12 consecutive hours daily to bring home one-and-a-half salaries.

In drawing up policies and measures to help families achieve a better work-life balance it is important to understand that women with different cultural, educational, social and emotional backgrounds have different needs and different expectations that influence their decisions. In addition to the greater number of mothers who work out of financial necessity, and perceive childcare as a financial burden, there is also a minority who are reluctant to interrupt their professional development. While more affordable childcare facilities might offer an incentive to the former, the career-oriented women could be attracted with incentives that offer increased flexibility.

It is important to create a society that does not penalise workers, be they men or women, who opt to work less than the 40-hour week and who regularly take time off to be with their family; to create an environment that provides both mothers and fathers on a reduced hours working schedule the reassurance that their career advancement will not be impaired as a result; and to create a working environment that capitalises on mothers' management competence, rewarding them on a performance or assignment basis rather than by the number of hours they put in. After all, caring for a young child and managing the household is some of the best training in financial planning, time partititioning and resource management a women can get.

It is therefore important to design measures that cater for different segments of society, to involve the participation of young mothers and mothers-to-be in the debate, and to recognise the importance of encouraging fathers to make use of family friendly measures so that both parents are able to participate fully in the upbringing of their children and in providing financial support for the family unit, bringing our society one step closer to gender equality.