Irish policy on parental leave is ‘maternalist’

The work-family issue – how men and women can manage the relationship between employment and care – has moved centre stage across Europe. For a brief historical moment, societies assumed a simple division of labour: women doing the caring, men as breadwinners. But that no longer holds and modern societies have to find new relationships between employment, care and gender, underpinned by measures to support employed parents and other carers.

One measure much touted has been statutory leave for parents – the right to take time off when children are young, with full job protection. The EU requires all member states to meet minimum standards on maternity and parental leave. In practice states vary greatly in what they offer, and most lag far behind leading countries, such as Sweden and Portugal.

Ireland, sad to say, is at the back of the pack, with 40 weeks of maternity leave (26 weeks paid at a low flat rate, the rest unpaid), no paternity leave and 18 weeks per parent of parental leave (all unpaid). Ireland is the only EU member state that provides no period of well-paid leave and the whole policy can be summed up as “maternalist”, premised on the notion that women are still primarily responsible for the care of young children.

Some countries are challenging this assumption, offering paternity leave and designing parental leave to promote use by men through well-paid, father-only quotas or bonuses where leave is shared.

Ireland has much work to do. So it is good to see signs of renewed interest in leave policy, with today's seminar, Families and Work, bringing together the perspectives of children, mothers, fathers, workers and businesses.

The Family Leave Bill, to be introduced this year, may help maintain momentum. Starting so far back, Ireland has the chance to build something new and striking. How should it set about this task?

First, it needs to grasp the scope of the issue confronting it: how to move towards a new relationship between employment, care and gender spanning the whole of working life. Helping working parents with young children is certainly important. But this is just one moment in life when care and employment can be in tension; others crop up as children grow or when workers’ other relatives get older.

This means policies that span the lifecourse. For example, not just parental leave, but something like Belgium’s “career break” scheme that gives all workers a period of paid leave they can draw down at any time for any purpose.

It means, too, changes in employment, moving away from a workplace norm of the full-time, continuously employed (male) worker to what Nancy Fraser calls the “universal caregiver model”, which assumes all workers are actual or potential carers.

Even the best parental leave scheme loses much of its point if parents returning to work are pitched into an environment that ignores family responsibilities or where they have “the right to ask” for flexible work – instead of the expectation of flexibility.

Second, tackling this ambitious agenda will require bringing together a wide range of interests: certainly government, trade unions, employers and gender equality agencies, but also those who need care.

Third, there needs to be clarity about what society wants to achieve, followed by design of measures proven to be effective, and regular monitoring to see how well they work.

Fourth, the costs of care – or rather the distribution of the costs – need to be considered. Care always costs. It’s just that many of the well-off and powerful don’t notice because costs are borne by the poor and voiceless – women in the home or women in badly paid “care work”. Thinking broadly and strategically offers the chance to address the costs of care on a basis that is fair and acknowledges its value.

Finally, all policies need to take account of the growing diversity in our societies. They must be relevant for all individuals and all types of families. Do they include same-sex couples? Do they work equally well for one or two-parent households? Do they accommodate all forms of care for adults? Do they cover all groups of workers?

The task is great, the potential benefits for individuals, economy and society incalculable. But the costs of not trying are huge.

Without a new equitable relationship between employment, care and gender, our societies face a growing crisis of care, inimical to individual and societal flourishing. For how can we have a life worth living if care and employment are not in harmony?

Peter Moss is an Emeritus Professor at the Institute of Education, University of London, and Co-ordinator of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research.

He is addressing the seminar, Families and Work: A Chance for Change in Dublin today , organised by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, National Women's Council of Ireland, and Start Strong.